The nations of the world have been on the precipice of reaching a global agreement to curb plastic pollution for a few years now. Delegates from 184 governments met in Geneva this month to try to hammer out a final treaty, but in the end, they walked away without a deal.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Delegates have missed their 2024 deadline, which was extended to this round of talks. But no deal is better than a bad deal, environmental advocates say. The big schism was over whether the treaty should phase out the use of hazardous chemicals in manufacturing and set limits to how much plastic is actually produced. Countries where plastics and fossil fuels are big business — including the US and Russia — would rather just focus on managing and recycling waste, leading to the deadlock

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