Momentum is rising. A majority of UN Member States and a wide variety of business and industry voices are now calling for the negotiation of a new international agreement to address the plastics crisis. 

Voices across the world are also calling upon Member States of the United Nations to negotiate a new legally binding global instrument on plastic pollution covering measures along the entire life cycle of plastics, including extraction of feedstocks, production, transport, use, disposal, and remediation. This new global instrument has the potential to end the ongoing threats to human, animal, and environmental health from plastics.

During the Fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA 5.2) governments agreed to adopt such an ambitious new agreement, with specific legally-binding provisions and obligations to prevent and remediate plastic pollution and its toxic impacts. This process must be predicated on a just and robust system for ensuring stakeholder participation and meaningful implementation at all levels under a human rights-based approach.