India, Dec. 21 -- Scientists have urged governments to act immediately on plastic pollution, as waiting for a binding Global Plastics Treaty could mean years of damaging delay even as plastic waste continues to accelerate worldwide.

Antaya March, Director of the Global Plastics Policy Centre at the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom, has argued in a new Nature Reviews: Earth & Environment article, that although international negotiations on a Global Plastics Treaty remain deadlocked, countries already have the tools they need to tackle the crisis now and must use them.

The latest round of negotiations under the United Nations Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5.2) ended without agreement in August.

Meanwhile, pla...