While addressing a high-level event, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for war on garbage, asking humanity to stop treating planet Earth like a garbage dump. "We are trashing our only home. We're spewing a torrent of waste and pollution that is affecting our environment, our economies, and our health," he said during the event of the UN General Assembly on the role of zero waste as a transformative solution in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, Xinhua news agency reported.

Pollution and chemicals are poisoning water, air and soil. Meanwhile, a staggering 10 per cent of all global greenhouse gas emissions comes from growing, storing and transporting food that is never used -- an outrage when more than 800 million people around the world go hungry every year, and when time is running out to avoid climate catastrophe, he said.