Source: The Patriot Light | AWK Network | VIEW ORIGINAL POST ==>
The final round of United Nations-brokered talks aimed at tackling plastic pollution are opening in South Korea with deep divisions over the need to stem the rising flood of the material, a rift that threatens to scupper a two-year long quest for a deal.
Plastic production will jump about 60% to 736 million tons a year by 2040, according to the OECD, dramatically increasing volumes as research shows how toxic the materials are as they accumulate in the natural environment and in human bodies.
The tension at the heart of negotiations, which begin Monday in Busan, is whether to agree to binding limits on certain classes of chemicals and on plastic production, or to settle on a package of funding aimed at improving trash collection and recycling.
A coalition of nearly 70 nations that include Rwanda, Norway and the U.K. is pushing for a “high ambition” treaty to regulate dangerous chemicals and phase out the most polluting single-use plastic products, like cutlery.
But Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and some other petrostates — plastics are made from chemicals derived from fossil fuels — ardently disagree. They have argued that plastics…
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