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Will the UN finally broker a treaty to end plastic pollution?

Negotiations for a global treaty to end plastic pollution are now in overtime, and UN member states are set to meet again in an attempt to reach a consensus.

"At the last round of talks, lobbyists for the petrochemical and plastics industries made up the single largest delegation," wrote Bangor University lecturer Winnie Courtene-Jones, who is also a member of the Coalition, in a recent article for The Conversation. The UN has warned that the negative effects at every stage in the life cycle of plastics disproportionately harm vulnerable populations worldwide, including indigenous peoples, low income families and rural communities. And each year, tens of millions of tons of plastic waste is disposed of in ways considered to be environmentally unsound, ending up in uncontrolled dumpsites, burned openly or accumulating on land and in bodies of water.

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