SAVING OUR SEAS

Plastic pollution is proving to be a planetwide peril. MARION McMULLEN looks at the mounting rubbish problem

TV presenter Sir David Attenborough’s BBC series Blue Planet II was one of the most watched programmes of 2017. It brought home the problem of plastic pollution in our oceans and seas for millions of viewers as he showed a bird trying to feed a piece of discarded plastic found on the beach to its hungry chick.

The 91-year-old naturalist, pictured left, warned that the world’s oceans are “under threat now as never before in human history”. PLASTIC can take hundreds of years to degrade in the ocean and can be consumed by marine animals when broken down and make its way into the human food chain. Louise Edge, of environmental group Greenpeace UK, said: “The amount of plastic waste humans have generated over the last few decades is truly mind-blowing.” ACCORDING to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), at current rates of pollution, there will likely be more plastic in the sea than fish by 2050. To put the amount in proportion, 12 billion tonnes is 35,000 times heavier than the Empire State Building in New York, right. SCIENTISTS say more than eight billion tonnes of plastic has been produced since the early 1950s and most of it now lies buried in landfills or litters the oceans, beaches and countryside. Roughly half the plastic waste was manufactured in just the last 13 years and only 9% has been recycled and 12% incinerated. EFFORTS are being made to combat the plastic problem. A UK-wide ban on the manufacture of cosmetics and care products containing tiny pieces of plastics known as microbeads came into force at the start of the year. They were added to rinseoff toiletries such as face scrubs, shower gels and toothpaste. BRITISH Prime Minister Theresa May, right, recently described the plastic waste polluting the seas as: “One of the great environmental scourges of our time” and experts calculate a truckload of plastic rubbish ends up in our oceans every single minute. MANY restaurant chains have announced they are ending the use of plastic straws. JD Wetherspoon announced last year it would offer paper straws in its 900 pubs and Wagamama will offer biodegradable paper straws from Earth Day on April 22.

Fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood recently backed the online campaign Refuse The Straw, which urges people to simply drink from the glass instead. A REPORT featured in the Science Advance journal last year predicted that, if current trends continue, roughly 12 billion tonnes of plastic waste will be discarded in landfills or polluting the Earth’s surface by 2050. DRINKS firms are also aiming to do their bit to cut growing plastic waste. Coca-Cola says its bottles will contain an average of 50% recycled content by 2030, in a bid to help make plastic waste “a thing of the past”.

It follows a pledge by water brand Evian to make all its bottles from 100% recycled plastic by 2025. ICELAND has become the first major retailer to commit to eliminate plastic packaging for all own-brand products within five years to help end the “scourge” of plastic pollution.

It aims to go “plastic-free” by the end of 2023.