On 13 March 2024, Doris Knoblauch (Ecologic Institute) gave a lecture on "Plastics and the Environment" highlighting the need for a global plastics treaty at a postgraduate course, where 21 experts from ministries, authorities, municipalities, non-governmental organizations and industry from low-income countries and emerging economies were represented and exchanged. The focus was on why plastic pollution is a problem and why we urgently need an international, legally binding plastics treaty.

The core statements of the lecture include:

• What plastics are (monomers vs. polymers) and what chemically characterises them.
• Plastics bring with them a variety of chemical impacts, amongst them endocrine disruption.
• Where does the plastic waste come from? There is a clear correlation: the higher the gross national income, the more plastic waste is produced.
• Plastic pollution occurs during each life stage, already during the extraction and production phase.
• We urgently need an international, legally binding plastics treaty.

The presentation was part of the 47th UNEP/UNSECO/BMUV International Postgraduate Course on Environmental Management for Developing Countries, organized by the Centre for International Postgraduate Studies of Environmental Management (CIPSEM) at the Technical University of Dresden.