The battle for plastic hegemony: the petrochemical historical bloc and the UN Global Plastics Treaty

Plastics are a ubiquitous feature of contemporary consumer capitalism. Despite scientific evidence and public awareness of the mounting health and environmental impacts of plastics pollution, global production is projected to grow significantly. Going beyond firm and industry-level accounts, we introduce the concept of a ‘petrochemical historical bloc’ to better capture the diverse alliances of state, corporate, financial, and civic actors that collectively sustain what we term ‘plastic hegemony’. The latter refers to the continued production and use of plastics, and also the structural, discursive, and institutional arrangements that normalize and defend plastic dependence while marginalizing and co-opting alternatives. Empirically, we analyze how this bloc has sought to shape negotiations over a UN Global Plastics Treaty through corporate-led multistakeholder partnerships. These initiatives promote a narrow vision of the circular economy centered on waste management, individual responsibility, and the financialization of plastic waste, thereby deflecting attention away from ‘upstream’ policies and caps on production. We show how the petrochemical historical bloc mobilizes trasformismo strategies to protect plastic hegemony, further embed its narrow vision of circularity within global plastics governance, and undermine more transformative ecological alternatives.