#plastic producers

...and the planet Being surrounded and yelled at about “misrepresenting reality” is not how serious United Nations-hosted negotiations are meant to proceed. But that is what happened to Prof Bethanie Carney Almroth during talks about a global treaty to slash plastic pollution in Ottawa, Canada. The employees of a large US chemicals company “formed a ring” around her, she says. At another event in Ottawa, Carney Almroth was “harassed and intimidated” by a plastic packaging representative, who barged into the room and shouted that she was fearmongering and pushing misinformation. That meeting was an official event organised by the UN. “So I filed the harassment reports with the UN,” said Carney Almroth. “The guy had to apologise, and then he left the meeting. He was at the next meeting.” “That was one example when I filed an official report,” said Carney Almroth, an ecotoxicologist from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. “But I’ve been harassed and intimidated lots of other times, in lots of other contexts, at off-site meetings, at side events, also at scientific conferences, via email and so on.” She has also had to take measures to avoid surveillance at the meetings. “I have a privacy screen protector on my phone, because they will walk behind us and try to film what’s on our screens and see what notes we’re taking, or who we’re chatting with. I would never open my computer in the middle of a room without knowing who is behind me. It’s a high-vigilance, high-stress environment.” These are examples of what numerous sources say is a “total infiltration” of the plastics treaty negotiations by vested industrial interests and corporate lobbyists. The core concern of six insiders who spoke to the Guardian was that the polluters are exerting too much power, not just within the negotiations but also within the UN Environment Programme (Unep), which oversees the negotiations. One source said they were “horrified” by the industry’s influence on policy and the sidelining of real solutions to plastic pollution, calling it “corporate capture”.