Standards and the international standardization landscape: Relevance to plastics

This policy brief examines the international standardization landscape regarding plastic pollution, arguing that current voluntary, industry-led standards are fragmented and insufficient on their own to combat pollution without government-led priorities and complementary regulatory frameworks.

• Existing plastic-related standards are developed by various organizations but lack the comprehensiveness and consistency required to serve as effective international instruments for combating plastic pollution or as metrics for measuring progress.
• Standards are primarily voluntary and industry-driven; therefore, they cannot solve plastic pollution without a complementary policy and regulatory framework and government intervention to set priorities, such as promoting non-plastic substitutes, recycling, and the phasing out of specific plastics.
• Standards could support a proposed global treaty on plastic pollution by providing monitoring tools and targets, provided that standards organizations adopt a holistic approach covering the entire plastics value chain and reduce existing fragmentation.

APA

W., W. (2021). Standards and the international standardization landscape: Relevance to plastics. Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs. https://tessforum.org/latest/standards-and-the-international-standardization-landscape-relevance-to-plastics

Chicago

W., Weissinger,. Standards and the international standardization landscape: Relevance to plastics. Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs, 2021. https://tessforum.org/latest/standards-and-the-international-standardization-landscape-relevance-to-plastics.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=W. |first1=Weissinger, |title=Standards and the international standardization landscape: Relevance to plastics |publisher=Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs |date=26 August 2021 |url=https://tessforum.org/latest/standards-and-the-international-standardization-landscape-relevance-to-plastics |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{w2021standards, author = {W., Weissinger,}, title = {{Standards and the international standardization landscape: Relevance to plastics}}, institution = {Forum on Trade, Environment, \& the SDGs}, year = {2021}, month = aug, url = {https://tessforum.org/latest/standards-and-the-international-standardization-landscape-relevance-to-plastics}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }