Plastics Treaty INC-5.2

Geneva, August 5 to 14, 2025

The second part of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-5.2), took place from 5 to 15 August 2025 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.

See IPEN’s statement released at the close of the negotiations here.

Plastics Treaty Resources

For each negotiating session, IPEN develops policy documents on the meeting agenda and emerging issues, as well as briefing papers, reports, and other materials.

Our Quick Views will be available soon in several languages.

IPEN Press Briefing

Toxic Plastic Exposures to Plastic Treaty Delegates and Plastic Waste Workers

At INC-5.2, IPEN released two new studies showing toxic plastic exposures to high-ranking UN officials, delegates, and to plastic waste workers in Kenya and Thailand.

See the IPEN press briefing discussing the study findings and the need for a meaningful Treaty to protect human health and the environment.

Plastics Treaty Scorecard

IPEN’s Plastics Treaty Scorecard evaluates the Chair’s current draft treaty text from December 1, 2024, that was developed following the fifth round of negotiations against IPEN’s 17 key criteria for protecting human health from plastics and plastic-related chemicals. The findings are clear: the draft treaty text does not go far enough to safeguard health.

IPEN's Global Actions to End Toxic Plastics

For more than 20 years, IPEN and our global members have produced original science, country-based data, and policy proposals to end the health and environmental threats from plastics. We’ve produced more than 135 publications in more than 85 countries, which are visualized in our new map.

Click below to explore the map and find research and resources from your country or region. For the best experience, we recommend viewing the map on your desktop.

Our Citizens’ Report also describes our members’ work to expose and end the health and environmental threats from chemicals in plastics. Click below to view the report.

IPEN in INC-5.2 news

in the News

Plastic and Health

Dr. Tracey Woodruff of the University of California San Francisco is a co-author of a recent paper in The Lancet describing plastic as “a grave, growing, and under-recognised danger to human and planetary health.” See the video (left) of her interview with the PBS News Hour. Professor Woodruff is also co-author, with IPEN’s Bjorn Beeler, of a recent editorial in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization arguing for a meaningful Plastics Treaty to protect human health.

Our Health, Our Voices: The Case for Public Participation in Multilateral Environmental Governance Forums

In recent years, the participation of civil society in international decision-making has been constrained, raising concerns about inclusivity and transparency. Despite being key stakeholders, civil society organizations (CSOs), Indigenous Peoples, and representatives from affected communities have been sidelined in forums that shape critical policies. This IPEN briefing describes why public participation in decisions that affect human health and the environment is essential in a democracy and is crucial to ensure individuals’ right to engage in decision-making processes that impact their lives.

The Plastic Industry's Muddled Math

Increasing plastic recycling has been presented as a solution to the plastic crisis, but the projected recycling numbers are often based on false assumptions and misleading statistics. These are often intentionally presented to oversell the capacity and promise of plastic recycling.

In this research brief, we summarize the science on the limitations of plastic recycling and the skewed statistics that are often used to oversell its potential.

A Small Slice of the Toxic Pie

Plastics are chemicals, and of the over 16,000 chemicals linked to plastics, less than 1% are regulated worldwide throughout their full life cycles. Yet, the non-paper containing compromise text suggestions, proposed by the Chair of the negotiation process, suggests that plastic chemicals could effectively be regulated as “chemicals in plastic products” even though toxic plastic chemicals can be released during production, use, and disposal, not only during the product stage.

This brief explains why narrowly focusing on the plastic product stage would fail to address the broader environmental and health impacts associated with plastics throughout their entire life cycle.

The Endocrine Society and IPEN provide a comprehensive update on the science of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which may be particularly harmful during the fetal and infant stages. The report examines bisphenols and phthalates, two toxic chemical groups found in many plastics, and includes a special feature highlighting EDC exposures throughout the plastic life cycle.

Children's Health Threats from Plastic Chemicals

Project TENDR, an alliance of 50+ leading scientists, health professionals, and advocates, share a briefing for delegates outlining how common exposures to plastic and its toxic chemicals are harming children’s brain development. They summarize the scientific evidence and offer policy recommendations to strengthen the Plastics Treaty to protect children’s health.

Troubling Toxics: Eliminating Harmful Plastic Chemicals Through the Plastics Treaty

The IPEN briefing Troubling Toxics discusses approaches in the Plastics Treaty to establish criteria for a negative list of toxic chemicals associated with the production, use, and disposal of plastics. IPEN calls for a strategy that combines a negative list of toxic chemicals to eliminate from plastics with an approach that prohibits marketing chemicals when there is no available toxicity data.