We have a great new episode discussing the United Nations Global Plastics Treaty from the view of Break Free from Plastic advocates here in Asia. Our guests today have been working for decades to reduce plastic pollution at its source. Just a brief tip though… if you haven’t tuned into previous episodes in this SEASON you might want to … it will catch you up on where we are at with the plastic treaty negotiations!

Well, the third meeting of the Global Plastics Treaty - otherwise called INC3 - ended last November and the Revised Zero Draft of the treaty is out… But there wasn’t a lot of progress during those INC3 meetings.

For this episode, we are partnering with Break Free from Plastic (or BFFP) to get their members' views as we gear up for the next treaty negotiations at INC-4 in April. BFFP has more than 12,000 organizations and individuals around the world working together to demand reductions in single use plastics and advocate for lasting solutions to the plastic pollution crisis.

Guests:

1. Arpita Bhagat - Plastic Policy Officer, GAIA Asia Pacific - based in India. GAIA is a network of more than 1000 organizations from 92 countries, whose vision is a just, zero waste world free from the burden of toxic pollution, where resources are sustainably conserved, not burned or dumped.

2. Semee Rhee - Global Policy Advisor with BFFP in Korea. Semee represents BFFP in the plastics treaty process.

3. Mageswari Sangaralingam is the Honorary Secretary at Sahabat Alam Malaysia based in Penang and is a research officer with the Consumers' Association of Penang for the past 32 years. She represented Sahabat Alam Malaysia - or Friends of the Earth Malaysia - at the INC-3 plastics treaty meeting.

Production credits:

Host: Marcy Trent Long

Producer: Carol Mang

Intro/outro music: Alex Mauboussin

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We have partnered with Break Free From Plastic (BFFP), headquartered in Asia, to produce this series. BFFP has numerous resources on their website about the Global Plastics Treaty:

You can also refer to: GAIA's treaty page and GAIA’s Asia Pacific treaty page

And check out CIEL's paper on UN procedural tools used to block plastic treaty progres.