Dr. Trisia Farrelly, Co-Director of Massey University’s (NZ) Political Ecology Research Centre (PERC), attended the Noumea and Waigani Convention COPs on the 29th and 30th August and the Pacific Environment Forum (PEF) on Monday 2nd September. Dr Farrelly connected with all the Pacific Island country representatives likely to attend UNEA5 and learned about some of their biggest waste challenges. Those with the most difficult challenges, unsurprisingly, were atolls states. She looks forward to continuing discussions with these state representatives in a two-day meeting she is organising at the end of the year. Here she and her colleagues hope to learn more about the plastic pollution challenges Pacific Islands States and Territories face and to help translate some of these into policy with the support of the Centre for International Environmental Law and the Environmental Investigation Agency.