From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Craig Rucker

According to a study in Science Advances, over 90% of ocean plastic comes from just 10 rivers, eight of which are in Asia. The United States, by contrast, contributes less than 1%. Yet Pew treats all nations as equally responsible, promoting one-size-fits-all policies that fail to address the real source of the issue.

Just as people were beginning to breathe a sigh of relief thanks to the Trump administration’s rollback of onerous climate policies, the United Nations is set to finalize a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty by the end of the year that will impose new regulations, and, ultimately higher costs, on one of the world’s most widely used products.

Plastics – derived from petroleum – are found in everything from water bottles, tea bags, and food packaging to syringes, IV tubes, prosthetics, and underground water pipes.  In justifying the goal of its treaty to regulate “the entire life cycle of plastic – from upstream production to downstream waste,” the U.N. has put a bull’s eye on plastic waste.  “An estimated 18 to 20 percent of global plastic waste ends up in the ocean,” the UN says.

As delegates from over 170 countries prepare for the final round of negotiations in Geneva next month, debate is intensifying over the future of plastic production, regulation, and innovation. With proposals ranging from sweeping bans on single-use plastics to caps on virgin plastic output, policymakers are increasingly citing the 2020 Pew Charitable Trusts report, Breaking the Plastic Wave, as one of the primary justifications.

But many of the dire warnings made in this report, if scrutinized, ring as hollow as an empty PET soda bottle. Indeed, a closer look reveals Pew’s report is less a roadmap to progress than a glossy piece of junk science propaganda—built on false assumptions and misguided solutions.

Pew’s core claim is dire: without urgent global action, plastic entering the oceans will triple by 2040. But this alarmist forecast glosses over a fundamental fact—plastic pollution is not a global problem in equal measure. According to a study in Science Advances, over 90% of ocean plastic comes from just 10 rivers, eight of which are in Asia. The United States, by contrast, contributes less than 1%. Yet Pew treats all nations as equally responsible, promoting one-size-fits-all policies that fail to address the real source of the issue.

This blind spot has serious consequences. Pew’s solutions—cutting plastic production, phasing out single-use items, and implementing rigid global regulations—miss the mark entirely. Banning straws in the U.S. or taxing packaging in Europe won’t stop waste from being dumped into rivers in countries with little or no waste infrastructure. Policies targeting Western consumption don’t solve the problem—they simply shift it or, worse, stifle useful innovation.

The real tragedy isn’t plastic itself, but the mismanagement of plastic waste—and the regulatory stranglehold that blocks better solutions. In many countries, recycling is a government-run monopoly with little incentive to innovate. Meanwhile, private-sector entrepreneurs working on advanced recycling, biodegradable materials, and AI-powered sorting systems face burdensome red tape and market distortion.

Pew pays lip service to innovation but ultimately favors centralized planning and control. That’s a mistake. Time and again, it’s been technology—not top-down mandates—that has delivered environmental breakthroughs.

What the world needs is not another top-down, bureaucratic report like Pew’s, but an open dialogue among experts, entrepreneurs, and the public where new ideas can flourish. Imagine small-scale pyrolysis units that convert waste into fuel in remote villages, or decentralized recycling centers that empower informal waste collectors. These ideas are already in development—but they’re being sidelined by policymakers fixated on bans and quotas.

Worse still, efforts to demonize plastic often ignore its benefits. Plastic is lightweight, durable, and often more environmentally efficient than alternatives like glass or aluminum. The problem isn’t the material—it’s how it has been managed after its use. That’s a “systems” failure, not a material flaw.

Breaking the Plastic Wave champions a top-down, bureaucratic vision that limits choice, discourages private innovation, and rewards entrenched interests under the guise of environmentalism. Many of the groups calling for bans are also lobbying for subsidies and regulatory frameworks that benefit their own agendas—while pushing out disruptive newcomers.

With the UN expected to finalize the treaty by early 2026, nations will have to face the question of ratification.  Even if the Trump White House refuses to sign the treaty – which is likely – ordinary Americans could still feel the sting of this ill-advised scheme.  Manufacturers of life-saving plastic medical devices, for example, are part of a network of global suppliers.  Companies located in countries that ratify the treaty will have no choice but to pass the higher costs along, and Americans will not be spared.

Ultimately, the marketplace of ideas—not the offices of policy NGOs—will deliver the solutions we need. It’s time to break the wave of junk science—not ride it.

Craig Rucker is president of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org).

This article supplied by Troy Media.

By Sylvain Charlebois

Trump’s controversial trade policies are delivering results. Canada keeps playing by global rules and losing

U.S. President Donald Trump’s brash trade agenda, though widely condemned, is delivering short-term economic results for the U.S. It’s also revealing the high cost of Canada’s blind loyalty to globalism.

While our leaders scold Trump and posture on the world stage, our economy is faltering, especially in sectors like food and farming, which have been sacrificed to international agendas that don’t serve Canadian interests.

The uncomfortable truth is that Trump’s unapologetic nationalism is working. Canada needs to take note.

Despite near-universal criticism, the U.S. economy is outperforming expectations. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta projects 3.8 per cent second-quarter GDP growth.

Inflation remains tame, job creation is ahead of forecasts, and the trade deficit is shrinking fast, cut nearly in half. These results suggest that, at least in the short term, Trump’s economic nationalism is doing more than just stirring headlines.

Canada, by contrast, is slipping behind. The economy is contracting, manufacturing is under pressure from shifting U.S. trade priorities, and food
inflation is running higher than general inflation. One of our most essential sectors—agriculture and food production—is being squeezed by rising costs, policy burdens and vanishing market access. The contrast with the U.S. is striking and damning.

Worse, Canada had been pushed to the periphery. The Trump administration had paused trade negotiations with Ottawa over Canada’s proposed digital services tax. Talks have since resumed after Ottawa backed away from implementing it, but the episode underscored how little strategic value
Washington currently places on its relationship with Canada, especially under a Carney-led government more focused on courting Europe than securing stable access to our largest export market. But Europe, with its own protectionist agricultural policies and slower growth, is no substitute for the scale and proximity of the U.S. market. This drift has real consequences, particularly for
Canadian farmers and food producers.

The problem isn’t a trade war; it’s a global realignment. And while Canada clings to old assumptions, Trump is redrawing the map. He’s pulling back from institutions like the World Health Organization, threatening to sever ties with NATO, and defunding UN agencies like the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the global body responsible for coordinating efforts to improve food security and support agricultural development worldwide. The message is blunt: global institutions will no longer enjoy U.S. support without measurable benefit.

To some, this sounds reckless. But it’s forcing accountability. A senior FAO official recently admitted that donors are now asking hard questions: why fund these agencies at all? What do they deliver at home? That scrutiny is spreading. Countries are quietly realigning their own policies in response, reconsidering the cost-benefit of multilateralism. It’s a shift long in the making and long resisted in Canada.

Nowhere is this resistance more damaging than in agriculture. Canada’s food producers have become casualties of global climate symbolism. The carbon tax, pushed in the name of international leadership, penalizes food producers for feeding people. Policies that should support the food and farming sector instead frame it as a problem. This is globalism at work: a one-size-fits-all policy that punishes the local for the sake of the international.

Trump’s rhetoric may be provocative, but his core point stands: national interest matters. Countries have different economic structures, priorities and vulnerabilities.

Pretending that a uniform global policy can serve them all equally is not just naïve, it’s harmful. America First may grate on Canadian ears, but it reflects a reality: effective policy begins at home.

Canada doesn’t need to mimic Trump. But we do need to wake up. The globalist consensus we’ve followed for decades is eroding. Multilateralism is no longer a guarantee of prosperity, especially for sectors like food and farming. We must stop anchoring ourselves to frameworks we can’t influence and start defining what works for Canadians: secure trade access, competitive food production, and policy that recognizes agriculture not as a liability but as a national asset.

If this moment of disruption spurs us to rethink how we balance international cooperation with domestic priorities, we’ll emerge stronger. But if we continue down our current path, governed by symbolism, not strategy, we’ll have no one to blame for our decline but ourselves.

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Canadian professor and researcher in food distribution and policy. He is senior director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University and co-host of The Food Professor Podcast. He is frequently cited in the media for his insights on food prices, agricultural trends, and the global food supply chain

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