Plastic pollution talks must speed up, Valdivieso warns

Negotiators must move "significantly" faster to reach a landmark treaty to curb plastic pollution, the diplomat chairing the talks warned on Wednesday, as countries lined up to express frustration about the limited progress.

Nearly 200 nations are in Busan to agree by Sunday on a deal to tackle the millions of tonnes of plastic waste that end up in the environment each year.

They arrived in the South Korean city after two years of talks that laid bare deep divisions.

Addressing negotiators on Wednesday, Ecuadorian diplomat Luis Vayas Valdivieso warned work was not advancing quickly enough.

"I must be honest with you, progress has been too slow. We need to speed up our work significantly," he said on the third day of negotiations.

"We must accelerate our efforts."

His call was followed by a string of frustrated speeches from countries including Fiji, Panama, Norway and Colombia.

"While we sit here debating over semantics and procedures, the crisis worsens," warned Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, Panama's special representative for climate change.

"We are here because microplastics have been found in the placentas of healthy women... We are literally raising a generation that starts its life polluted, before taking its first breath."

He accused negotiators of "tiptoeing around the truth, sidestepping ambition and ignoring the urgency that demands action" in remarks that received loud applause.

Other representatives accused some participants of failing to engage in good faith and actively seeking to drag out the talks.

They did not name countries directly, but diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity have repeatedly said Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran are holding up proceedings and showing little willingness to compromise.

All three countries took the floor to hit back.

"We are sincere, we are honest and we are ready to cooperate," said Iran's Massoud Rezvanian Rahaghi.

"But we do not want to be blamed for blocking negotiations through dirty tactics."

Russian representative Dmitry Kornilov meanwhile blasted the "unacceptable" accusations and warned delegates to abandon the most contentious parts of the draft discussions.

"If we are serious about this then we must concentrate on provisions that are acceptable to all delegations," he said.

The main faultline in talks lies over whether the treaty should address the full lifecycle of plastic, including potential limits to its production, chemical precursors and certain products considered unnecessary, including many single-use items.

The UN decision that kicked off the negotiating process explicitly refers both to the full lifecycle of plastic and sustainable consumption, but countries including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran have consistently rejected calls to limit supply.

Saudi Arabia has warned supply restrictions "extend beyond" the treaty's focus on plastic pollution and risk creating "economic disruptions".