Simon Reeve on Plastics

TRAVELLING along the coast of Kenya a few years back, I was stunned to find a quiet beach on a remote island almost entirely covered in plastic rubbish dumped on the sand by powerful tides.

The few villagers living in the area were also astonished. "At first we tried to gather it up," one local woman told me, "but more kept appearing out of the sea. Where is it all coming from?"

The dangers of microplastics

The huge quantities of old plastic bags, bottles, toothbrushes, combs, buckets and fishing nets on the beach, waste from around the world, was bad enough. But when I dug into the sand I was horrified to see the plastic was breaking down into trillions of smaller and smaller pieces. The beach was becoming plastic. A sieve the size of a ship would be needed to separate the plastic particles from the grains of sand.

I have since stood on beaches across the planet, from Hawaii to Italy, and been appalled at mountains of plastic rubbish. Yet the visible plastic waste is just a fraction of the rubbish clogging our oceans. At least 70 per cent of plastic waste sinks down to pollute the sea bed. There is no easy way of clearing it up.

Thinking differently about plastic pollution

Make no mistake, plastic is a wonder material. Strong, lightweight and cheap, it lasts for centuries. Used sensibly it is a marvel. Used once and thrown away, it can be an environmental disaster.

More plastic has been produced in recent years than in the whole of the 20th century. Globally, an astonishing one million plastic bottles are now bought every single minute. Each year millions of tons of plastic waste are being dumped into rivers and thrown into our oceans. It threatens the health and future of our seas, and the health and future of us all.

How plastic affects animals (and us!)

Plastic garbage traps and chokes seabirds and marine mammals. Plastic fragments also release potentially harmful compounds, poisoning the sea, and they attract other dangerous chemicals in the water, which then stick to the plastic. Those fragments are then eaten by tiny fish, which are eaten by bigger fish, which are eaten by us. Our seas are now emptying of fish and being filled with plastic rubbish. It is a scandal, and a catastrophe.

We need more investment in natural alternatives to plastic, and we need to think carefully about what we buy. Choose products that are made to last, and that are recycled and sustainable. At stake is even more than the future of our beaches and our global oceans.