Unless an international agreement is signed, It is projected that plastic waste triples in 2060, causing significant damage, even for human health, according to the UN Environment Program (UNEP).
The unchanged facilitated conversations follow a decision in 2022 by member states to develop a legally binding international instrument to end the crisis of plastic pollution, even in world seas, within three years.
The problem scale is massive, with straws, cups and agitators, carrier bags and cosmetics that contain microperlas; Only some of the single -use products that end in our oceans and landfills.
“We will not recycle to get out of the crisis of plastic pollution: we need a systemic transformation to achieve the transition to a circular economy,” “ The executive director of UNUMA, Inner Andersen, has insisted.
Circular argument
The objective of the agreement is to cover the full life cycle of plastics, from design to production and elimination. “Promote plastic circularity and avoid the escape of plastics into the environment”, According to the text used to guide the conversations of the meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee (INC) in the Swiss city.
In 22 pages, the current text of the draft contains 32 drafts of articles that will be discussed in good detail. The text is designed to shape the future instrument and will serve as a starting point for negotiations.
10 -day period
For 10 days from August 5 to 14, the delegations of 179 countries are due to pores on the text as they meet at the UN Geneva, together with more than more than 1,900 participants from 618 observer organizations, including scientists, environmentalists and industry representatives.
A key objective of the meeting is to reach a final agreement on the text. The broader purpose is to solidify the proven ways to reduce plastic pollution worldwide.
Before conversations in Geneva, the respected medical magazine The Lancet published a warning that the materials used in plastics cause extensive disease “in each stage of the life cycle of plastics and at each stage of human life.”
According to more than two dozen health experts cited in the magazine, babies and young children are particularly vulnerable. “Plastics are a serious, growing and little recognized danger to human and planetary health” and are responsible for health -related economic losses that exceed $ 1.5 billion per year, “he said.
To follow live plastic pollution conversations on UN websites, Click here.
Leading conversations in Geneva is Jyoti Mathur-FilippExecutive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee (or INC) on plastic pollution, and head of the INC Secretariat.
“Only in 2024, it was projected that humanity consumed more than 500 million tons of plastic. Of this, 399 million tons will become waste, ”he said.
The latest forecasts indicate that plastic leakage to the environment will grow by 50 percent by 2040. “The cost of damage to plastic pollution could increase as high as a cumulative of $ 281 billion between 2016 and 2040,” he said.
The way to an international agreement:
Five negotiation sessions towards a PLASTIC POLLUTION TREATY They have taken place so far …
- The first was in Uruguay in November 2022.
- Two more followed in 2023, in France and Kenya.
- In April 2024, the Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee (INC) met in Canada.
- More recently, discussions were carried out in Busan, Republic of KoreaAt the end of last year. These conversations were postponed after the delegations agreed to resume discussions in Geneva, under the leadership of the president of the committee, Ambassador Luis Vayas Valdivieso of Ecuador.