I see quite a few examples which depend on additional resources, but it seems like this would be the simplest solution: (which is what I used in my own project) which is basically just converting from an ArrayList to an Array and then to a List.
List accounts = new ArrayList<>();
public String accountList()
{
Account[] listingArray = accounts.toArray(new Account[accounts.size()]);
String listingString = Arrays.toString(listingArray);
return listingString;
}