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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Phoebe Weston

Tuesday briefing: What fraught talks to reach a ‘Paris agreement for plastic pollution’ could bring

A person in Pakistan sorts a mountain of used plastic bottles at a recycling unit in Karachi.
A person in Pakistan sorts a mountain of used plastic bottles at a recycling unit in Karachi. Photograph: Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images

Good morning. Not only does plastic waste clog up waterways, beaches and strangle sea life, it also causes havoc inside the human body. Tiny fragments – invisible to the human eye – are probably swimming around your lungs, blood and liver right now.

This represents a “growing and underrecognised danger” to human health, the latest report in the Lancet warns, as 10 days of tense talks kick off in Geneva today, with 179 countries due to hash out a kind of “Paris agreement for plastic pollution”.

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