Countries grappling with the "immense" task of ending plastic pollution began a new round of talks in Paris on Monday, amid protests and warnings of the urgency to act, reports Yahoo! News.
Representatives of 175 nations with divergent ambitions met at the UNESCO headquarters with the aim of making progress towards reaching by next year a historic agreement covering the entire plastics life cycle.
As the talks opened, the head of the negotiations, Gustavo Meza-Cuadra Velazquez of Peru, said the challenge was "immense, as we are all aware here, but it is not insurmountable".
"The world's eyes are on us," he said.
French president Emmanuel Macron urged participating nations to put an end to a "globalised and unsustainable" production model, where richer countries export plastic waste to poorer ones.
"Plastic pollution is a time-bomb and at the same time already a scourge today," he said in a video message, adding that the materials, based on fossil fuels, posed a risk to global warming goals as well as to biodiversity and human health.