After 11 days of talks between 180 nations in the middle of a heatwave, the final session dragged late into the night. The next morning we learned that the plastics treaty talks had - again - ended without an agreement to tackle plastic pollution. So after recovering from this intense week, Anja got in touch with Alexandra Harrington. Alexandra is an expert in law and she wears many hats: She’s the Chair of the Plastic Pollution Task Force at the World Commission on Environmental Law of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a Visiting Scholar at McGill University, and a member of the Plastic Treaty Legal Drafting Group. In this episode, they review what really happened in Geneva. And Alexandra has a hopeful message: Don't give up yet on the plastics treaty.

Theme: Dorian Roy

Music: Blue Dot Sessions sessions.blue

- Plasticity https://app.sessions.blue/browse/track/336059

- The Pewter Elephant https://app.sessions.blue/browse/track/335775

- Lush Arborio https://app.sessions.blue/browse/track/335777

- Blue Latex https://app.sessions.blue/browse/track/336061

Sound of protests from GAIA global alliance for incinerator alternatives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMncIHaNdmg

Plenary recordings from the UNEP webcast https://www.youtube.com/@UNEP/streams

How [Not] to Make a Plastics Treaty - Update from Geneva (INC 5.2.) with Neil Tangri by Anja Krieger

Dejea Lyons and Shellan Saling from the Youth Plastic Action Network leave no doubt: To save the Plastics Treaty process and get to a meaningful agreement, serious sh*** needs to happen! Listen to Shellan's statement at the opening plenary and our chat under a tree in front of the United Nations Headquarter in Geneva, Switzerland. Thanks to the security guard who kindly let us sit and record there before he came over and informed us we had set up an alarm by sitting on the ground under the tree, because of "the cables" underneath :) If you're in Geneva: Fast forward all the way to the last ten minutes to get some tips for the morning of August 12, 2025, which is International Youth Day.

How [Not] to Make a Plastics Treaty - Update from Geneva (INC 5.2) with Magnus Lovold by Anja Krieger

When the plastics treaty negotiations in South Korea ended without a result last December, media reports suggested they had failed. But not so fast - the negotiations are far from over, and continue this year. In this episode, you'll get an update on where we stand on the path to a global plan to tackle plastic pollution - and what’s to come. You'll hear from three of the smartest observers of the process: Magnus Lovold from NAIL, the Norwegian Academy of International Law, Chris Dixon from EIA, the Environmental Investigation Agency, and Andrés Del Castillo from CIEL, the Center for International Environmental Law.

Oh, and for the first time, there's an extra little track at the end of the episode. Don't miss it, it's lovely! And a call for support: To travel and stay in Geneva for two weeks will be super expensive. So please help me (Anja, host of this pod) get there if you can. Every contribution helps, no matter how small. You’ll help me continue my work: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/plastispherepod

Credits: Thanks to Dorian Roy for the theme, Blue Dot Session for additional music, Maren von Stockhausen for the cover art, and the UNEP team for allowing me to use the excerpts from the conference videos.

In this guest episode, G. Sampath and Satyarupa Shekhar discuss the fifth meeting of the UN’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) and why it ended without delivering a legally binding treaty to address global plastic pollution.

Continue listening to the full episode here: https://www.thehindu.com/podcast/plastic-pollution-treaty-collapse/article68946877.ece

In recent years, a lot of new research on micro- and nanoplastics has come out. Reporting in the media sounds pretty scary, with nanoplastics found in the human body. What's does the science know for sure at this point, and what is still open and under investigation? Anja speaks with Denise Mitrano, a professor at the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich, the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, about media reports, journalism, the state of the science, and Denise's own research.

Music: Dorian Roy and Blue Dot Sessions

The Plastic Mythbusters project is a collaboration between the Helmholtz Centre Hereon and the University of Strathclyde. Try our quiz and learn more in our detailed answers. You can also send us new claims to check or comments on our answers via the feedback form at the end of the quiz. We’d love to hear from you – to tackle the most persistent plastic myths!

Links

- Quiz: https://hub.hereon.de/portal/apps/experiencebuilder/experience/?id=07c344c64d1c42f89807351b9ad4a219

- About the project: https://www.coastalpollutiontoolbox.org/112001/index.php.en

- Coastal Pollution Toolbox https://www.coastalpollutiontoolbox.org/

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

How [Not] to Make a Plastics Treaty - Midnight Update from #INC5 in Busan by Anja Krieger

Why production reduction and a fair transition are so important (with GAIA and Grid Arendal) by Anja Krieger