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17-08-2025
UNITED NATIONS: Global talks to develop a landmark treaty to end plastic pollution have once again failed.
The UN negotiations, the sixth round of talks in just under three years, were due to end on Thursday but countries continued to negotiate into the night in the hopes of breaking a deadlock.
There remained a split between a group of about 100 nations calling for curbs on production of plastic, and oil states pushing for a focus on recycling.
Speaking in the early hours, Cuban delegates said that countries had “missed a historic opportunity but we have to keep going”.
“I’m hugely disappointed that an agreement wasn’t reached,” said the UK’s Marine Minister Emma Hardy.
“Plastic pollution is a global crisis that no country can solve alone, and the UK is committed to working with others at home and abroad to protect the environment and pave the way to a circular economy,” she added.
The talks were convened in 2022 in response to the mounting scientific evidence of the risks of plastic pollution to human health and the environment.
Despite the benefits of plastic to almost every sector, scientists are particularly concerned about potentially toxic chemicals they contain, which can leach out as plastics break down into smaller pieces.
Micro-plastics have been detected in soils, rivers, the air and even organs throughout the human body.
Countries had an original deadline to get a deal over the line at the end of December last year but failed to meet this.
Speaking on behalf of the island states, the northern Pacific nation of Palau said on Friday: “We are repeatedly returning home with insufficient progress to show our people.”
“It is unjust for us to face the brunt of yet another global environmental crisis we contribute minimally to,” it added.
The core dividing line between countries has remained the same throughout: whether the treaty should tackle plastics at source, by reducing production, or focus on managing the pollution that comes from it.
The largest oil-producing nations view plastics, which are made using fossil fuels, as a vital part of their future economies, particularly as the world begins to move away from petrol and diesel towards electric cars.
The group, which includes Saudi Arabia and Russia, argue that better waste collection and recycling infrastructure is the best way of solving the problem, a view shared by many of the producers themselves.
“Plastics are fundamental for modern life, they go in everything,” said Ross Eisenberg, president of America’s Plastic Makers, a trade association for the plastic production industry in the United States.
“Focusing on ending plastic pollution should be the priority here, not ending plastic production,” he added, warning that attempts to substitute plastics with other materials could lead to “unintended consequences” but many researchers warn that this approach is fundamentally flawed. Global recycling rates are estimated at only about 10%, with limits on how far that can rise.
“Even if we manage to boost that over the next few decades to 15, 20, 30%, it would remain a substantial amount that is polluting the environment and damaging human health,” said Dr Costas Velis, associate professor in Waste and Resource Engineering at Imperial College London.
“Therefore, we do need to improve recycling… but we cannot really hope that this is going to solve all the aspects of plastic,” he added. (Int’l News Desk)
