Plastic Pollution

Since plastic began to be mass-produced in the 1950s, the material has been building up in the environment and in people’s bodies. These six graphs illustrate just how bad the problem has gotten, and why delegates from more than 170 countries have committed to negotiating a global, legally binding treaty…

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Diplomats from 184 countries have kicked off what is billed as the final round of negotiations aimed at securing a global UN pact to prevent the world from “drowning in plastic pollution”. Over the next ten days in Geneva, Switzerland, they will be trying to thrash out a legally binding…

Nearly 180 countries, including Australia, have kicked off 10 days of talks aimed at hammering out a landmark global treaty on combating the scourge of plastic pollution. "We are facing a global crisis," Ecuadoran diplomat Luis Vayas Valdivieso, who is chairing the talks process, said at the start of 10…

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Heather McTeer Toney is the Executive Director of the Beyond Petrochemicals campaign, which aims to halt the expansion of the petrochemical industry. I grew up in the Black church, where silence never lasted long. Sooner or later, someone would feel that Holy Ghost nudge, that moment when your heart pounds,…

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Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Ahead of the expected finalization of a UN global plastics treaty, a group of international experts calls for a greater focus on health impacts when considering plastic pollution. The Health Policy published in The Lancet reviews the current evidence on how plastics—including microplastics and plastic chemicals—impact…

The global plastics trade has more than doubled in value over the past two decades, reaching an estimated $1.13 trillion in 2023. This is according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) titled “Global Trade Update (August 2025): Mobilising Trade to Curb Plastic…