Environment: the difficult negotiations on plastic pollution

Under the aegis of the UN, Paris is hosting representatives from 175 countries from 29 May to 2 June at UNESCO headquarters in an attempt to reach a legally binding international treaty against plastic pollution by 2024. In the space of two decades, the amount of plastic dumped into the environment has doubled to 460 million tonnes a year. Most of this waste ends up in the ocean, forming a seventh continent in the Pacific a third the size of Europe.

A majority of the countries represented in Paris therefore intend to vote for measures to limit the production and consumption of plastic. But other countries, such as Russia, China, India and the Gulf States, which rely heavily on plastic production, are putting the brakes on and objecting to such measures being taken without unanimity.

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