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The fresh push from nearly 180 countries to a ‘world free of plastic pollution’
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The fresh push from nearly 180 countries to a ‘world free of plastic pollution’

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Almost 180 countries, including Australia, deducted 10 days of conversations aimed at hammering a milestone worldwide treaty in combating the plastic pollution.
“We are confronted with a global crisis,” said Ecuadoran Diplomat Luis Vayas Valdivieso, who foreses the conversation process, at the beginning of 10 days of negotiations.
“Plastic pollution is damaged for ecosystems, pollutes our oceans and rivers, threatens biodiversity, causes damage to human health and unfairly influenced the most vulnerable,” he said.
“The urgency is real, the evidence is clear and the responsibility is to us.”
Three years of negotiations, a wall in South Korea became a group of oil-producing states in December when a consensus blocked.
Since failure in Busan, countries have been working behind the scenes and give it again in Geneva, in conversations at the United Nations.

Key figures that sent the negotiations said that they did not expect an easy ride this time, but insisted that a deal remained within reach.

Ecuadoran Diplomat Luis Vayas Valdivieso (center), who is chairman of the conversations, said that plastic pollution was a “worldwide crisis” and countries had a responsibility to tackle this. Source: MONKEY / EPA / SAVE NOLFI

“There has been extensive diplomacy from Busan ‘Til Now,” said executive director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP) Inger Andersen against Agence France Presse.

UNEP organizes the conversations, and Andersen said that conversations between and between and between different regions and interest groups had generated Momentum.
“Most of the countries I spoke to have said:” We come to Geneva to close the deal. ”

“Will it be easy? No. Will it be simple? No. Is there a path for a deal? Absolutely.”

Plastic pollution is so ubiquitous that microplastics were found on the highest mountain tops, in the deepest ocean channel and spread over almost every part of the human body.

How did we get here and what can be different this time?

In 2022, countries agreed that they would find a way to tackle the crisis towards the end of 2024. The so -called last negotiation round on a legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the seas, in Busan.
One group of countries was looking for an ambitious deal to limit production and to eliminate harmful chemicals.
But a linking usually oil -producing countries rejected production limits and wanted to concentrate more closely on the treatment of waste.

Valdivieso said that an effective, honest and ambitious agreement was now within reach.

“Our paths and positions may differ; our destination is the same,” he said Monday prior to the conversations.
“We are all there because we believe in a shared case: a world free of plastic pollution.”
More than 600 non-governmental organizations go to the Geneva interviews.
Valdivieso said that lessons had been drawn from Busan, and NGOs and the civil society would now have access to the discussions that the missed points tackle, such as prohibiting certain chemicals and covering production.
“To resolve the crisis of the plastic pollution, we have to stop making so much plastic,” Greenpeace delegation chief Graham Forbes told Agence France Presse.

The group and its allies want a treaty “that lowers plastic production, eliminates toxic chemicals and offers the financing needed to switch to a fossil fuel, plastic -free future,” he said.

A young girl with a piece of cardboard with "SOS" written about it. The O is a sphere that cries.

Greenpeace and his allies want a treaty that cuts the production of the plastic and eliminates toxic chemicals. Source: MONKEY / EPA / SAVE NOLFI

“The fossil fuel industry is in force here,” he noticed, adding: “We cannot have a few countries determine the future of humanity when it comes to plastic pollution.”

How much plastic waste is produced every year?

Every year more than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced worldwide, half of which are for one -time use items.
While 15 percent of the plastic waste is collected for recycling, only 9 percent are actually recycled.
Almost half, 46 percent, ends in landfills, while 17 percent are burned and 22 percent are managed incorrectly and litter.
A report in the Lancet Medical Journal warned Monday that plastic pollution was a “serious, growing and under recognized danger” for health, which cost the world at least US $ 1.5 trillion ($ 2.31 trillion) in health -related economic losses.
The new assessment of existing evidence, carried out by leading health researchers and doctors, compared plastic with air pollution and lead, and said that its impact on health can be limited by laws and policy.

To hammer the message home, a replica outside the UN of the famous sculpture of Auguste Rodin De Thinker will be slowly immersed in mounting plastic waste during the conversations.

A work of art with plastic items under a large plaque that reads "Plastic treaty".

Every year more than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced worldwide. Source: MONKEY / AP/Salvatore di Nolfi

The artwork, entitled The Thinker’s Burden, is built by the Canadian artist and activist Benjamin von Wong.

“If you want to protect health, we have to think about the toxic chemicals that enter our environment,” he told Agence France Presse.
But Matthew Kastner, spokesperson for the American Chemistry Council, said that the plastic industry and the products it makes “were of vital importance for public health”, in particular through medical devices, surgical masks, chairs for the safety of children, helmets and tubes that deliver clean water.

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