Gove ‘haunted by plastic in our seas’
Minister, charities and public call for action after 11m viewers see heartrending cost of ocean pollution
MICHAEL Gove vowed action on plastic pollution last night after admitting he had been l eft ‘haunted’ by shocking scenes in Blue Planet II.
The BBC documentary – seen by nearly 11million viewers – featured a pilot whale carrying her dead newborn around for days, reluctant to let go.
The programme suggested that it might have been poisoned by its mother’s own polluted milk.
The footage led to an outpouring of anger from viewers, charities and campaign groups yesterday.
The Environment Secretary said the documentary had made the case to tackle the scourge of plastic rubbish unstoppable. In a series of tweets, Mr Gove said: ‘Still haunted by last night’s Blue Planet II – the imperative to do more to tackle plastic in our oceans is clear. We at Defra will work urgently to identify further action.’
The Environment Secretary’s department was already considering introducing a deposit scheme on plastic bottles in England – similar to that in Scotland.
The Treasury is expected to consider a carrier-bag style tax on single-use plastic items – such as throwaway trays for ready meals. The Government has already promised to outlaw plastic microbeads in cosmetics, and introduced the 5p levy on plastic bags which has seen their use fall dramatically.
But green groups, MPs and academics yesterday called for even tougher measures to reduce the eight million tons of plastic being dumped into our oceans every year – killing sealife and even ending up in the fish we eat.
They suggested measures including more water fountains in public places and a ban on plastic cutlery and nonrecyclable cups.
The Daily Mail has been at the forefront of campaigns to stop the tide of plastic poison polluting the planet.
Last night politicians from the other main parties backed calls for urgent action to tackle the plastic crisis. Mary Creagh, Labour chairman of the Commons environmental audit committee, called for a tax on new and non-recyclable plastic.
‘Every day we know that 15million plastic bottles go to landfill, are littered or incinerated and less than one in ten are made from recycled material,’ she said.
‘These containers are destroying our seas and disrupting our marine l i fe. The figures are mind- boggling and set to increase. ‘ We need to tax new plastic and plastic that can’t be recycled – we need to phase it out at source by taxing companies who use it.’
Lib Dem environment spokesman Tim Farron said: ‘ Britain should be leading the way in tackling this crisis. We must end the wasteful throwing away of billions of pieces of plastic debris, from bottles to coffee cups, that end up being dumped into our oceans.’ On Sunday night’s Blue Planet II, fish and turtles were shown struggling to swim through fishing ropes, plastic sacking and debris including bottles and tubes of paint.
Sir David Attenborough warned the 10.8million viewers who tuned in: ‘Unless the flow of plastics and industrial pollution i nto the world’s oceans is reduced, marine life will be poisoned by them for many centuries to come.
‘The creatures that live in the Big Blue are perhaps more remote than any animals on the planet, but not remote enough, it seems, to escape the effects of what we are doing to their world.’
Tisha Brown, who is an oceans campaigner for Greenpeace, said: ‘Because plastic is so durable, we need measures which stop any plastic waste ending up in our oceans, because that i s always going to be a l ot cheaper than getting it out once it’s in there.’
‘It’s imperative we do more’