(and why it matters for the Global Plastics Treaty)<\/h2>\n
Originally posted by Greenpeace International<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n The gravest consequences of the war are borne by people in Iran and across the region: lives lost, families displaced and essential infrastructure damaged. Its\u00a0fossil fuel shock<\/a>\u00a0has also carried\u00a0economic consequences far beyond the battlefield<\/a>.<\/p>\n The war on Iran triggered an oil market crisis that sent shockwaves far and wide, and some consequences are still unfolding. Impacts rippled beyond energy and transport into shops and supermarkets, pharmacies and homes. People everywhere are\u00a0still paying<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nearly everything we buy, from shampoo bottles to strawberry packaging, is made from or with petrochemicals, wrapped in plastic, or both. But it does not have to be, and most people do not want it to be.<\/p>\n The war exposed a hidden risk in the plastics economy. Plastic depends on fossil fuel feedstocks and global petrochemical supply chains. When oil and gas supplies are disrupted, the cost and availability of packaging, medical supplies and everyday goods are disrupted too. Households, public services and communities ultimately pay.<\/p>\n The war has changed the terms of the debate around the Global Plastics Treaty. It has revealed the real costs of being tethered to the plastics supply chain. At the next round of treaty negotiations, governments have a choice. They can lock in deeper vulnerability to future price and supply shocks, or build economies resilient enough to withstand them.<\/p>\n Here are six things the conflict has shown us.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Giuseppe Lanotte \/ Greenpeace<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The war disrupted plastic production, imports, and exports at once, sending costs soaring worldwide. Formosa Petrochemical Corp (FPCC),\u00a0one of the world\u2019s largest plastic producers, was forced to declare force majeure<\/a>. This is a legal term meaning it could not meet contractual obligations because of circumstances beyond its control.<\/p>\n In Japan, polyethylene production, a plastic widely used in shopping bags and packaging, reportedly\u00a0fell 62% in March<\/a>. Shortages then spread from factories to supermarket shelves.<\/p>\n The fallout reached beyond supply chains to hospitals, where South Korea had toban the hoarding of medical syringes<\/a>. It reached household cupboards, where the price of\u00a0body wash reportedly climbed 7.7%<\/a>\u00a0in a matter of weeks. It also reached children\u2019s toy boxes. A US-based soft-toy manufacturer said its supplier in China had cited material\u00a0cost increases of 10% to 15%<\/a>\u00a0within three weeks of the war starting.<\/p>\n Petrochemicals go into more than\u00a06,000 everyday products<\/a>, according to the US Department of Energy. The question is not whether every one of these products can change overnight. It is how many uses can be reduced, redesigned or replaced with safer, non-fossil-fuel alternatives.<\/p>\n This conflict revealed new pressure points for countries whose industries depend heavily on plastics and petrochemical feedstocks. According to South Korean media,\u00a0naphtha import prices rose 68%<\/a>\u00a0in a single month, while\u00a0small and medium-sized manufacturers reported material shortages and cost increases of more than 20%<\/a>.<\/p>\n As some producers were forced to scale back, China saw the conflict as a way to move beyond years of oversupply and low margins. Its own efforts to curb destructive overcapacity and price competition had struggled to resolve this problem. It\u00a0increased exports to Asian markets<\/a>, used accumulated inventory, ramped up idle capacity and absorbed demand left by disrupted competitors. One industry analyst has described this as a potentially lasting shift in market share.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the US turned the same crisis into a windfall.\u00a0Ethane-fed plants were less exposed<\/a>\u00a0to disruption at the Strait of Hormuz and kept input costs lower even as global prices climbed. Producers raised prices as markets tightened.Dow raised North American polyethylene prices<\/a>\u00a0by 10 cents a pound in March, then 15 cents in April, before doubling that increase days later.\u00a0Another increase was announced in August<\/a>.<\/p>\n LyondellBasell said its second-quarter earnings, excluding unusual items,\u00a0rose nearly 600%<\/a>\u00a0year on year to US$1.4bn.\u00a0Dow swung from a loss to a profit<\/a>within a few quarters of the war\u2019s start. This was not simply a story of market adjustment. Companies with less exposure to naphtha supply disruptions were better positioned to profit while producers and communities elsewhere absorbed the risks.<\/p>\n The benefits and harms of the petrochemical economy are not distributed fairly. Communities near extraction, refining and petrochemical facilities often carry\u00a0pollution and health burdens<\/a>, while countries dependent on imported fuel and feedstocks are exposed to prices they cannot control.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Patrick Cho \/ Greenpeace<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n According to\u00a0NielsenIQ data reported by Reuters<\/a>, grocery prices in the US rose 2.9% year on year in the four weeks from the start of the war to 28 March. The same data showed bottled-water prices rising 5.8%, while nappies, pads and tampons, all of which contain plastics, rose by between 2% and 6%.\u00a0School lunchboxes rose by more than 26%<\/a>, the biggest increase of any school item, according to retail data.<\/p>\n Synthetic footwear could also become more expensive. With roughly\u00a070% of synthetic shoe materials derived from petrochemicals<\/a>, industry analysts project prices could rise by another 1.5% to 3% by late summer and autumn.<\/p>\n In Taiwan, the\u00a0price of a basic plastic bag more than doubled<\/a>, and\u00a0Costco reportedly had to ration<\/a>\u00a0the number of food storage bags a single customer could buy. Companies and governments made the decisions that left economies exposed to this crisis, but it was ordinary people who paid for it. They paid through petrol, public transport, food, household goods and essential supplies.<\/p>\n The impacts are not shared equally. Lower-income households, small businesses, informal workers and countries reliant on imported fossil fuels and petrochemical feedstocks have far less room to absorb higher costs or shortages of essential goods.<\/p>\n In March, just weeks into the conflict, South Korea\u2019s president, Lee Jae Myung, told his cabinet that the country\u2019s deep reliance on petrochemicals made it difficult to predict where the next disruption would hit. He warned it \u2018poses a serious threat to people\u2019s daily lives<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n By April, he had moved from emergency response to longer-term reform, calling for a \u2018plastics-free economy\u2019. Taiwan\u2019s government\u00a0expanded reuse infrastructure<\/a>\u00a0to build a more resilient economy and reduce exposure to market fluctuations.<\/p>\n The lesson is not that scarcity or rationing is desirable. It is that planned, publicly supported reuse and reduction systems can protect people better than an economy dependent on volatile virgin plastic supply chains.<\/p>\n The question is whether enough governments act in time to avoid the next shockwave.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Greenpeace<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Industry has long argued that plastic is too convenient, too cheap and too embedded in everyday life to be meaningfully cut back. But when Taiwan\u2019s plastic bags suddenly became scarce, the country continued to function. Retailers adjusted, the government\u00a0expanded reuse programmes<\/a>, and people brought their own bags.<\/p>\n As virgin plastic prices climbed, French retailer\u00a0Carrefour committed to removing 5,000 tonnes of plastic from its packaging<\/a>\u00a0through refill formats and packaging reductions. It said it would pass the savings on to customers through lower prices.<\/p>\n This does not mean responsibility should fall on individuals. It means governments and businesses can build systems that make reuse, refill and less packaging easy, accessible and affordable.<\/p>\n Single-use plastic is embedded in retail systems, but it is not as indispensable as the industry claims. Cutting back is possible, and it can reduce costs as well as pollution.<\/p>\n The conflict is not over, and even when it is, disruptions will come again. A similar pattern played out in 2021, when the\u00a0Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal for six days<\/a>, disrupting global trade and adding to existing pressures on plastics supply chains.\u00a0<\/p>\n Exposure is also set to grow. The IEA predicts that plastics and petrochemicals are on track to become the\u00a0single largest driver of growth in global oil demand through 2050<\/a>.<\/p>\n Plastic producers are not separate from the fossil fuel economy. Petrochemicals are made from fossil fuel feedstocks, so continued growth in virgin plastic production deepens demand for oil and gas. It also locks communities and economies into exposure to future price shocks.<\/p>\n At the next round of Global Plastics Treaty negotiations, governments have a critical opportunity to cut dependence on fossil fuels, reduce the health harms caused by plastics and build systems more resilient to the next disruption.<\/p>\n A binding treaty that meaningfully cuts plastic production is not only a win for public health, ecosystems and the climate. It could be a turning point for economic security, geopolitical stability and the resilience of the systems we all depend on.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Jack Taylor Gotch \/ Greenpeace<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The lesson of the war on Iran is not that people should learn to live with shortages. It is that economies built around fossil fuels and ever-growing virgin plastic production are exposed to shocks they cannot control.<\/p>\n1. Plastic supply chains are vulnerable to fossil fuel shocks<\/h2>\n
![\"ENI](\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org.au\/static\/planet4-australiapacific-stateless\/2026\/09\/4147af15-gp1supi8.jpg\" "\\"ENI")
2. The crisis created winners and losers<\/h2>\n
3. Households, public services and communities bear the costs<\/h2>\n
![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org.au\/static\/planet4-australiapacific-stateless\/2026\/09\/6da7c474-gp0sttwj3.jpg\" "\\"\u2018Unwrap")
4. Some governments are choosing reuse and resilience<\/h2>\n
5. Reuse and reduction can work at scale<\/h2>\n
![\"Taiwan\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org.au\/static\/planet4-australiapacific-stateless\/2026\/09\/b8fc6af0-gp1sv93r.jpg\" "\\"TW")
6. Without structural change, the next shock is inevitable<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org.au\/static\/planet4-australiapacific-stateless\/2026\/09\/86c09204-55128716231_a28c1157a1_k-1024x683-1.jpg\" "\\"Iran")
A Global Plastics Treaty can help break the cycle<\/h2>\n
![\"Activists](\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org.au\/static\/planet4-australiapacific-stateless\/2026\/09\/10b906e3-gp0su6gy0.jpg\" "\\"Plastics")