The talks in Uruguay are under the auspices of the UN Environment Agency. They are the first meeting of the Agency’s International Negotiating Committee and are aimed at forging a legally binding consensus, by 2024, on how to end plastics pollution.
The House of Commons committee - a cross-party group which scrutinises government on behalf of Parliament - launched a report this month on what to do about the major and growing issue of plastic waste.
Anticipating the talks now getting underway in Uruguay, one of the key recommendations of the report was that the UK government plays a leading role in the negotiations by pushing for legally binding targets to be included in the treaty. The report also called on the UK to ban all exports of plastic waste.
