March to End the Plastic Era as global plastic treaty talks continue

Ottawa, Canada | Traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg People — World leaders will gather between April 23-29, 2024, for the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4)  to advance a plastics treaty in Ottawa, marking a pivotal “make or break” moment for the Global Plastics Treaty. The pressure is high as negotiations are well into the final scheduled year of the process, yet due to the petrochemical influence inside the negotiation room and the low ambition of a handful of plastic-producing countries, we are still far from a treaty that would address the plastics crisis in a meaningful way and confront the harms that plastic causes to communities across its entire “life cycle.”

This is why civil society groups from around the world are coming together in a mass mobilization at INC-4 in Ottawa and marching from Parliament Hill to Shaw Center on April 21, 2024, at 11:00 AM (EST), as well as in different satellite actions in multiple locations globally to center the goals and values of communities most impacted by the plastic life cycle. We have clear demands, and we are going to make them heard.

As negotiators arrive, Break Free From Plastic movement members and allies want to remind them of their obligations to protect human rights, human health, the environment, and the climate. This process is meant to establish a legally binding instrument to rid the world of plastic pollution across the full life cycle, and the mass mobilization in Ottawa is our way of letting the negotiators know that we will not wait silently on the sidelines while petrochemical companies work together with the governments of fossil fuel-producing countries to trade away our communities as “sacrifice zones” yet again. 

The entire plastics life cycle comes at the expense of public health and human rights with plastic production playing a significant role in fueling the climate crisis. The mandate to negotiate the Treaty agreed on March 2022 during the the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) was a groundbreaking achievement. Now is the time for governments to choose what sort of impact these negotiations will have on our shared future.

On April 21st, Native and Indigenous leaders, frontline community groups, climate activists, youth leaders, healthcare professionals, waste-pickers, environmental advocates, scientists, and global allies from across civil society will come together in the streets of Ottawa to speak with our feet. We invite you to join us! 

The #BreakFreeFromPlastic movement invites members of the media to attend the press briefing where we will outline key demands for world leaders (with live translations available in French and Spanish – please remember to bring headphones for the Zoom audio).