BFFP Newsletter 🌍 📰 : Upcoming UNEA-7, plastic bag ban in California, and other stories!

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Subject: BFFP Newsletter 🌍 📰 : Upcoming UNEA-7, plastic bag ban in California, and other stories!

Latest News and Updates

December 5, 2025

UNEA 7: For A Resilient Planet, Stop Plastic Pollution Now!

UNEA-7, the seventh session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, will be held from December 8–12, 2025, in Nairobi, Kenya, under the theme "Advancing sustainable solutions for a resilient planet." This meeting will set the global environmental agenda, provide policy guidance, and define policy responses to environmental challenges.

As environmental ministers and other world leaders gather in Nairobi to discuss sustainable solutions for a resilient planet, it is essential to remind them that the plastic pollution crisis continues to threaten our health and the health of our planet.

Spread the word

New California Plastic Bag Ban Will Take Effect Next Year

California technically banned plastic grocery bags in 2014, but a loophole in the law made an exception for thicker plastic bags that could theoretically be reused, which unfortunately just wound up increasing the tonnage of plastic grocery and merchandise bags discarded in the state that year.

“What people will experience on the first day of 2026 is not dissimilar from what people experienced when the law first went into effect, before the stores and the bag manufacturers began exploiting what became a loophole,” said Mark Murray, Director of Californians Against Waste.

California’s new law is a cause for celebration and an important step towards a safer and healthier way of life!

Learn more

"The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late” book cover. Written by Judith Enck and Adam Mahoney.

New Book “The Problem with Plastic” is an Urgent Call to Action

In their new book, Beyond Plastics founder and president Judith Enck and climate reporter Adam Mahoney expose how the fossil-fuel and chemical industries created the plastic problem, and how we can ultimately stop it.

Here’s what fellow #BreakFreeFromPlastic changemaker Sharon Lavigne, executive director of RISE St. James and 2021 Goldman Prize winner, has to say about the book:

“Plastic is a silent killer! ‘The Problem with Plastic’ exposes the harms of plastic and the plastic industry worldwide. From beginning to end, it outlines how plastics came into our lives and have been hurting us ever since. A must-read for folks trying to fight plastic pollution and stop the production of plastic.”

Check it out

Photo credit: Richmond Quarcoo, Plastic Punch, Ghana, 2023

Great Global Nurdle Hunt Exposes Extent of Plastic Pollution

The 2025 Great Global Nurdle Hunt results are in: over 1500 volunteers across 25 countries found plastic pellets in 88% of protected coastal areas, and 23 out of 36 biodiversity hotspots. These findings are spurring new EU regulations and building momentum for stronger protections worldwide. Read the 2025 Report to find out how Break Free From Plastic members are holding industry accountable by making invisible plastic pollution visible.

Read the report

Image Credit: Greenpeace Africa

Plastic Isn’t Just Trash, It’s a Justice Issue

Kenya outlawed plastic bags in 2017; a step in the right direction. But look around the bottles and sachets and wrappers are still pouring out of our streets, drainages and rivers. It is not whether bans will work but why is it that we continue to fail trying to ban one type of plastic but leave another untouched?

Companies just change disposable material to the other and this cycle continues. It is a band-aid on a gaping wound – one that still keeps bugging frontline communities the most.

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Subject: BFFP Newsletter 🌍 📰 : Upcoming UNEA-7, plastic bag ban in California, and other stories!