Plastics and healthcare: Navigating the balance among access, health, and sustainability

As countries prepare to return to Geneva for the next round of Global Plastics Treaty negotiations (INC-5.2), a major question sits at the centre of the talks: how can the world reduce the harms of plastics while ensuring safe, equitable access to essential health products?

Earlier this year, the WHO Collaborative Centre for Climate, Health, and Sustainable Care together with Accountability and Transparency in the Pharmaceutical Sector and the Collaborative Centre for Climate, Health, and Sustainable Care hosted a workshop to explore this challenge. The event brought together researchers, policymakers and WHO leadership to share emerging evidence and practical frameworks for treaty implementation.

Jeremy Greene presented the PASS-UP model (Pragmatic Approach to Streamlining Single-Use Plastics in Healthcare), a structured, collaborative process designed to help healthcare systems transition away from single-use plastics. PASS-UP emphasises engaging the people who shape healthcare products and pathways—clinicians, policymakers, designers, engineers and activists—to rethink material choices and redesign systems for reuse rather than waste.

The session concluded with a panel discussion on the decision-making tools, governance approaches and evidence gaps that must be addressed to support an ambitious, health-centred plastics treaty.