On a pristine Australian island the birds are so full of plastic they crunch<\/a><\/p>\nIt’s one of the most pristine places on the planet, but the birds have bellies so full of plastic that they crunch if you squeeze them.<\/p>\n
“Our views were not reflected \u2026 without an agreed scope, this process cannot remain on the right track and risks sliding down a slippery slope,” said Kuwait.<\/p>\n
Bahrain said it wanted a treaty that “does not penalise developing countries for exploiting their own resources”.<\/p>\n
France’s Ecological Transition Minister Agn\u00e8s Pannier-Runacher said: “I am disappointed, and I am angry,” saying a handful of countries, “guided by short-term financial interests”, had blocked the adoption of an ambitious treaty.<\/p>\n
“Oil-producing countries and their allies have chosen to look the other way.”<\/p>\n
The future of the negotiations was not immediately clear.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/8c563c85f2ee0758c22a0526c3c5c72a\")
<\/p>\n
Protesters call for a strong global plastics treaty in South Korea. (AP Photo: Ahn Young-joon)<\/p>\n
Some countries called for a seventh round of talks in future, with the EU saying the latest draft was a “good basis for a resumed session”, and South Africa insisting: “It cannot end here.”<\/p>\n
The talks in Geneva \u2014 called after the collapse of the fifth and supposedly final round of talks in South Korea late last year \u2014 opened on August 5.<\/p>\n
Last-ditch scramble<\/p>\n
With countries far apart, chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso produced a draft text on Wednesday based on the limited areas of convergence.<\/p>\n
But it was immediately shredded by all sides, plunging the talks into disarray, with the high ambition group finding it shorn of all impact, and the Like-Minded Group saying it crossed their red lines and lacked scope.<\/p>\n
Loading…<\/p>\n
Mr Vayas spent Thursday in a frantic round of negotiations with regional groups and produced a new version after midnight.<\/p>\n
Lead negotiators then held a meeting behind closed doors to thrash out whether there was enough in the text to keep talking. But shortly before sunrise, the game was up.<\/p>\n
Only 9 per cent of plastic waste recycled<\/p>\n
More than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced globally each year, half of which is for single-use items.<\/p>\n
While 15 per cent of plastic waste is collected for recycling, only 9 per cent is actually recycled.<\/p>\n
Nearly half, or 46 per cent, ends up in landfills, while 17 per cent is incinerated and 22 per cent is mismanaged and becomes litter.<\/p>\n
As Australia embraces energy from waste, perceptions are changing<\/a><\/p>\nEnergy from waste is common around the world, and there are almost a dozen plants now in operation or being proposed across Australia \u2014 but with the opportunity comes other problems.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The plastic pollution problem is so ubiquitous that microplastics have been found on the highest mountain peaks, in the deepest ocean trench and scattered throughout almost every part of the human body.<\/p>\n
On current trends, annual production of fossil-fuel-based plastics will nearly triple by 2060 to 1.2 billion tonnes, while waste will exceed 1 billion tonnes, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.<\/p>\n
AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Talks aimed at striking a landmark global treaty on plastic pollution have ended without agreement as countries failed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,4930,6348,128,20668,6902],"class_list":{"0":"post-74514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-plastic","12":"tag-pollution","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-treaty","15":"tag-united-nations"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}