Plastic Pollution and Poverty - A once in a lifetime opportunity to stop the rubbish

During 2023 and 2024, nearly 200 governments, including Australia will gather to negotiate the world’s first global agreement to address plastic pollution.

In response to this once in a lifetime opportunity, Tearfund has developed a briefing paper called Plastic Pollution and Poverty to highlight the impact of plastic pollution on our world’s most vulnerable communities and to help shape the formation of an effective and legally binding treaty.

This briefing paper aims to:

• explain the links between plastics and poverty
• highlight the impacts of plastic pollution on health, environments and livelihoods in low- and middle-income countries
• outline the role of the informal waste sector
• explore what a ‘just transition’ and a safe, inclusive circular economy would mean for the informal waste sector and communities in low- and middle-income countries who depend on plastic
• outline the key issues that a UN treaty on plastics would need to address in order to bring about systemic, wide-ranging change for people living in poverty.