Turning the Tide on Plastic

Trade Paperback

How Humanity (And You) Can Make Our Globe Clean Again

Enough plastic is thrown away every year to circle the world 4 times

More than 8 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans each year

300 million tonnes of new plastic is produced every year

An estimated 5 trillion pieces of plastic now litter the world's oceans

38.5 million plastic bottles are used every day in the UK

A million plastic bottles are used per minute around the world

500 million plastic straws are used per year

Without big action, at the current rate, pieces of plastic will outnumber fish in the ocean by 2050. That is the legacy we are leaving our children and grandchildren.

Plastic flows into our lives from every direction and most of it is not recycled. Instead it is incinerated or ends up in landfill, where it will sit for hundreds of years, or enters the world's seas where it fragments into tiny pieces to become microplastics - the environmental scourge of our times.

Many of us had assumed that governments, brands and waste authorities were dealing with plastic on our behalf. But the impact of shows such as Blue Planet along with national beach cleans and high-profile campaigns have resulted in a collective wake-up call. If there were plans and strategies, they have not worked as we imagined. It would be easy to