The world is looking in Geneva for a solution to plastic pollution

Representatives of 180 countries met yesterday, in 10 -day meetings in Geneva under the auspices of the United Nations, in an effort to develop the first global treaty to combat the scourge of plastic pollution that threatens the entire planet.

The Ecuadorian diplomat, Luis Fayas Valdiviso, who chairs the discussions upon receiving representatives of more than 600 non -governmental organizations, warned that the “law -binding” text of the countries, which has been researching three years ago, “will not emanate”.

Amid the escalating geopolitical and commercial tensions, it was decided to hold this additional session of international government negotiations (CIN5-2) that lasts 10 days after the failure of Busan’s talks in South Korea last December, when a group of oil-producing countries prevented any progress.

“Many diplomatic efforts have been made since Busan,” the executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, Ingger Anderson, told AFP. No, will it be simple? No, will there be complications? Yes, is there a way to reach a treaty? Certainly, “and” design “expressed an agreement.

For his part, Valdiviso said: “It has been extracted through Busan,” stressing that NGOs and Civil Society will be able to reach the groups that will discuss thorny points in the agreement, such as the chemicals to be banned, and determine the ceiling of production and so on.

On the eve of the start of discussions, scholars and non -governmental organizations intensified pressure on the delegates.

Experts in a report published in the “Lancet” medical magazine warned that plastic pollution represents a “grave and increasing” healthy danger “, and the world costs at least $ 1.5 trillion annually, in turn, the doctor and researcher at Boston College in the United States, Philip Landrigan, warned that” the most vulnerable people, especially children, are the most affected by plastic pollution. “

Speaking to “France Presse”, “Solidarity for the Protection of the Rights of the Child”, the executive director of the “Solidarity for the Protection of the Child’s Rights”, said, “In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, water, lakes, rivers are contaminated and plastic molecules that remain in this contaminated water, causing several diseases, especially in children.”

In the embodiment of this issue, a artwork was established in front of the United Nations offices in Geneva bearing the name “the burden of the thinker”, which is a copy of the statue of the “thinker” of the famous sculptor Auguste Rodan, and it appears in a sea of plastic waste.

The Canadian activist, Benjamin von Wong, who prepared the work, said that he would like to push the delegates to search on “the effect of plastic pollution on human health” during their negotiations.

However, a spokesman for the American Council of Chemical Industry, Matthew Kastner, located in Geneva, defended the plastic and the services he performs for modern societies, and said that “plastic is essential for public health, especially thanks to its use in all sterile medical equipment, surgical masks, hoses, tubes and packaging that allows in particular to improve hygiene and food safety.”

However, these arguments do not convince the non -governmental organization Green Pace, and called on the head of its delegation, Graham Forbes, during a demonstration in Geneva to “stop making this amount of plastic in order to stop the plastic pollution crisis.”

For its part, Sima Brabho of the Swiss NGO, “Creshat Hiro World”, which is especially active in Southeast Asian countries (Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia), said, “Our first priority is to reach discounts in plastic production.”

She added, “There are many petrochemicals and plastic factories” in these countries, and therefore many jobs that depend on them, which is “the reason that makes us call for a fair transitional process” by developing job opportunities in the areas of “reuse, recycling and waste collection”.

. The most vulnerable people, especially children, are the most affected by plastic pollution.