AFP, Geneva

Talks on forging a groundbreaking treaty to combat the scourge of plastic pollution were floundering yesterday, with progress slow and countries wildly at odds on what the proposed agreement should cover.

The negotiations, which opened on Tuesday, have four working days left to strike a legally-binding instrument that would tackle the growing problem choking the environment.

But in a blunt mid-way assessment, the talks chair warned the 184 countries gathered at the United Nations in Geneva that progress so far was well off track.

Some countries called for areas where countries are far from agreement to be ditched completely for the sake of expediency. Others slammed the brinkmanship and said insistence on consensus could not be used as justification for sinking the more ambitious elements of the treaty.

“Progress made has not been sufficient,” Ecuadoran diplomat Luis Vayas Valdivieso told delegates in a frank summary as country delegations gathered in the assembly hall to take stock.

Countries have reconvened at the UN in Geneva after the failure of the supposedly fifth and final round of talks in Busan, South Korea in 2024.

After four days of talks, the draft text has ballooned from 22 to 35 pages -- with the number of brackets in the text going up near five-fold to almost 1,500 as countries insert conflicting ideas.

More than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced globally each year, half of which is for single-use items.

Plastic production is set to triple by 2060.