Is Solving the Plastic Problem a Moral Issue?

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PLatiques in the clouds, in fish guts, in our brain, in the placenta: the earth and its inhabitants are in the middle of a plastic crisis. A global treaty to approach this crisis has been expected for a long time. A United Nations committee is trying to chop the details of an agreement that would limit the production of new plastics and minimize the harmful effects of plastics since 2022.

The committee’s objective was to finalize such an international treaty last year, but negotiations blocked, with multiple oil producing countries – including Russia, India and Saudi Arabia – rejecting proposals to limit plastic production, among other obstacles. With a target of 2024 for a finalized treaty, delegates of more than 170 countries, as well as representatives of plea groups, plastic industry organizations, and others, have been gathered in Geneva, Switzerland, since last week to give the finalization of the Last Treaty.

The perspectives are not particularly good. At the end of last month, Trump administration officials sent a note to several countries urging them to reject the provisions aimed at capping the production of virgin plastic and adding certain chemicals to plastics even before Geneva talks. But the United States government is not the only one to send letters that try to influence the form of this radical plastics treaty. Religious leaders around the world have also weighed, indicating their desire to see a form of constructive solution to the increasing plastic crisis. The letters were obtained recently by Nautilus.

The current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, sent a message dated July 28 which relayed his approach full of hope but pragmatic. “It is not practical to expect the total elimination of the production of plastics because many plastic products are essential for the health and well-being of living beings,” wrote the head of Tibetan Buddhism. “However, the thoughtless use of plastic should be reduced.” The Dalai Lama urged the delegates to “act judiciously” and to develop a treaty which “protects the health of all living beings, protects human rights and preserves our little blue planet, our only house”.

Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the chief of the Eastern Orthodox Church, echoes the feelings of the Dalai Lama, with a particular accent on the most vulnerable. “Thanks to our insensitive attitudes and our reckless actions, we have created many more plastics and single-use products that we need or can manage,” he wrote. “We now know that plastic waste pollutes not only the mountains, the forests, the cities and the oceans, but that it harms the most vulnerable among us by breaking into tiny particles which enter and pollute the bodies of each living creature,” he wrote in a letter to the UNI Committee.

Batholomew asked that the resolution of this problem requires a spectacular change in attitudes regarding the relationship between earth creatures. “It is our fervent hope and our prayer that we will radically convert our vision of the world and our ways, recognizing that we are all interdependent as human beings and with the rest of creation.”

The Vatican also weighed. Joachim von Braun, president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, reiterated the need to change the relationship of humanity with plastic. The crisis requires a “holistic approach-that rooted in a deep ethics of care for our common house, not just marginal adjustments”, he wrote in a letter of August 1. “The treaty must be based on science and include exploitable recommendations which approach both the chemical and particulate aspects of plastics throughout their life cycle.”

Hopefully that an agreement will be released from Geneva this week which will help humanity to emerge from decades of dependence on plastic products and protect our own health and the blue ball that we call here.

Lead image: Fotokita / Shutterstock

• Bob Grant

  Published on August 13, 2025

  Bob Grant is the editor -in -chief of Nautilus.