Rethinking packaging: Environmentalists urge governments to end plastic pollution

GENEVA, Switzerland – As the final Global Plastics Treaty negotiations continue in August 2025, environmentalists are pushing for a treaty that will protect both people and nature.

These men and women are saying, ‘enough is enough; something must change,’ even as they join the voices of waste pickers, frontline communities, scientists, healthcare professionals, children and youth, women, businesses, and non-governmental organisations around the world.

They are calling on governments to step up. Fix the process, keep the promise, and finalise a meaningful treaty to end plastic pollution.

Hellen Kahaso Dena, Greenpeace Africa’s Pan-Africa Plastics Project Lead, says they cannot let a few Member States derail and delay the negotiations like they have done in the last 5 INC meetings.

“Governments must seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and use every tool available to make progress and end corporate capture of these negotiations. African governments must demonstrate leadership as they have in previous negotiations and resist any attempts to come out of Geneva with a waste management treaty,” Kahaso urges.

Graham Forbes, Greenpeace’s Head of Delegation to the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations and Greenpeace USA’s Global Plastics Campaign Lead, observes that in Busan and Nice, governments promised ambition, which means cutting plastic production.

“An ineffective, weak treaty is a betrayal that further burdens the Global South and emboldens the world’s biggest polluters. All countries that promised ambition must step up and deliver a treaty that cuts plastic production. They must be confident knowing the public is behind them, depending on their leadership and action now,” says Graham.

Graham further notes that multilateralism must work for those who need it most.

“Consensus has failed due to the tyranny of the few. High-ambition countries must be true to their word or be remembered as the ones who let the world choke on plastic. Governments promised ambition. Now they must deliver, not compromise,” he says.