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Geneva Ends in Silence

12 0
24.08.2025

How did something so urgent manage to fizzle out in Geneva? Eleven days. Nearly two hundred countries. Everyone showed up in Geneva to talk about something we all see every single day. Plastic. In our homes, in our oceans, in our food. And then it ended. No treaty. No deal. Just a let-down that says more than any protest ever could.

Here’s what we’re facing. Global plastic production now hits around 460 million metric tonnes every year. It has exploded from just 2 million in the 1950s and continues growing at about 8 per cent annually. Most of it is single-use. Gone in minutes, but it sticks around for centuries. And the truth is, we barely recycle any of it. Just nine per cent. That’s it. So, the rest? It ends up in landfill, in rivers, on beaches, or worse, it breaks down into microplastics and disappears into places we don’t see until it’s too late.

Right now, between eight and twelve million tonnes of plastic go into the ocean each year. That’s every year. It sounds like a number, but it’s more like a tidal wave we’re pretending isn’t coming. Fish are eating plastic. Birds are choking on it. And we’ve even found microplastics in our blood and lungs. This isn’t abstract anymore. It’s personal. If we don’t change direction, plastic production could triple by 2060.

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The talks in Geneva were supposed to help. They were meant to bring the world together to draft a treaty that could cut plastic at its........

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