What UN plastic waste treaty talks in Ottawa want: Wont recycle our way out [Video]

World leaders, environmental groups and business representatives are gathered in Ottawa for the penultimate round of talks to create a legally-binding plastic pollution instrument through the United Nations.

The goal of this is to develop a treaty aimed at ending plastic pollution, including microplastics, from entering terrestrial and marine ecosystems by 2040.

“We won’t ban our way out of plastic pollution, we won’t recycle our way out of plastic pollution, and we won’t reuse our way out of plastic pollution. We need to do a better job of all these things at different steps and different types of plastics,” Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault said at the conference Tuesday.

“Our hope is to help countries do a lot of the legwork so that in South Korea at the end of the year we can focus on a certain number of elements, and we can finalize this agreement.”

At a previous …