Plastic summit could be most important green deal since Paris accords, says UN

Clothing and plastic waste chokes a beach in Accra, Ghana. Plastic breaks down into tiny particles found everywhere from the seafloor to the Artic ice pack. Photograph: Muntaka Chasant/REX/Shutterstock

World leaders will come together online and in Nairobi, Kenya, next week, in what is described as a “critical moment” in progress towards the first ever global treaty to combat plastic waste. Inger Andersen, director of the UN Environment Programme, said an agreement at the UN environment assembly could be the most important multilateral pact since the Paris climate accord in 2015.

Public disgust and impatience over the growing mountain of plastic waste has led to an unprecedented “degree of focus” that could see member states agreeing a blueprint for a legally binding treaty to control plastics “from source to sea”, she said.