The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned that plastic waste is on track to triple by 2060 unless nations agree on a binding international accord to curb pollution

“We will not recycle our way out of the plastic pollution crisis: we need a systemic transformation to achieve the transition to a circular economy,” UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said ahead of the latest round of talks in Geneva.

The negotiations follow a 2022 decision by UN Member States to develop a legally binding treaty aimed at ending plastic pollution, including in oceans, within two years. 

Supporters have likened the initiative to the 2015 Paris Climate Accord but cautioned that petrostates are allegedly exerting pressure to weaken the deal, given their reliance on crude oil and natural gas—key raw materials for plastics production.

The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) is discussing a 22-page draft text that contains 32 articles covering the full life cycle of plastics, from design and production to disposal. 

The goal is “to promote plastic circularity and prevent leakage of plastics in the environment,” according to the guiding document.

For 10 days from 5–14 August, delegations from 179 countries are expected to review the text line by line at the UN in Geneva, joined by more than 1,900 participants from 618 observer organizations, including scientists, environmentalists, and industry representatives.

A key focus of the meeting is to share practical solutions for reducing plastic use, such as adopting non-plastic substitutes and safer alternatives.

Ahead of the talks, The Lancet published a warning from over two dozen health experts on the extensive disease burden linked to plastics. 

“Plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognized danger to human and planetary health” and are responsible for health-related economic losses “exceeding $1·5 trillion annually,” the journal noted, emphasizing that infants and young children are particularly vulnerable.

Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, Executive Secretary of the INC and head of its Secretariat, underscored the scale of the crisis. “In 2024 alone, humanity was projected to consume over 500 million tonnes of plastic. Of this, 399 million tonnes will become waste,” she said.

She warned that plastic leakage into the environment is projected to rise by 50 percent by 2040. “The cost of damages from plastic pollution could rise as high as a cumulative $281 trillion between 2016 and 2040,” she added.

This week’s meeting marks the fifth negotiation session on the plastics treaty. The first took place in Uruguay in November 2022, followed by two rounds in France and Kenya in 2023. In April 2024, the INC convened in Canada before resuming discussions in Busan, Republic of Korea, later that year. The talks were adjourned in Busan and are now continuing in Geneva under the leadership of Ambassador Luis Vayas Valdivieso of Ecuador, Chair of the INC.