The world is struggling with plastic pollution — Canada is no exception

As thousands of delegates meet in Ottawa this week to work toward a global treaty on curbing plastic waste, the experts say the world may never get a better opportunity to confront the problem.

In a series of interviews with CBC's airing Saturday, participants at this week's United Nations conference said the problem of plastic waste goes far beyond questions about whether a particular item can go in the blue bin, or what happened to plastic straws.

The Ottawa negotiations are the second-to-last meeting before 176 countries are expected to finalize a treaty to tackle plastic waste by addressing plastics throughout their lifecycle, from production to use and disposal.

«Ottawa really needs to be a turning point,» Graham Forbes, the global plastics project leader at Greenpeace, told CBC News ahead of the meetings. «We're in a make-or-break moment for the global plastics treaty negotiations.»

One expert told host Catherine Cullen this week that the treaty needs to address aspects of waste disposal even more basic than questions about international plastic standards and recycling.

«Well, the reality is that 67 per cent of the global population do not have access to waste collection services,» said Clarissa Morawski, CEO of Reloop Platform, an anti-waste advocacy group.

«And that's the fundamental reason why we have a plastics pollution problem. So the first thing we need to do is get everybody around the world up to that 95 per cent coverage level.»

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault told CBC's this week that the international approach would allow the global community to meet ambitious targets, including the goal of ending plastic pollution by 2040 agreed to by a group of countries known as the High Ambition Coalition.

«Right now