Scientists have examined the impact that plastic pollution is having and have identified seabirds with more than 250 man made objects lodged in their stomachs.

tHE PROBLEM

Plastic pollution is currently at its highest level since records began and due to this growing issue, plastic waste can now be found on every beach in the world, whether that is a local tourist beach or a tropical island.

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Single use plastic is everywhere. Plastic items such as straws, bottles, cups and cutlery are used and disposed of by millions of people every single day. It is estimated that across the world, 1 million single use plastic water bottles are bought every minute, over 90% of which are not recycled. Single use plastic has become more and more common over the years, due to the growing demand for convenience and take away food and drink.

Single use plastics

The UK produces around 400 million tonnes of waste annually, most of which ends up in landfill sites. As a nation we are beginning to take a stand against excess packaging, particularly in supermarkets. Consumers have protested by removing excess packaging and leaving it in supermarket trollies to highlight the volume of unnecessary waste.

Excess packaging

Litter is becoming a serious problem. It is reported that nearly half of the population admit to dropping litter, with cigarette butts and food packaging among the most common forms of litter.

The amount of litter dropped in the UK has increased 500% since the 1960s, made possible by the increase in packaging and plastic waste. 30 million tonnes of litter is collected from the streets of England each year.

Littering

This is having a hugely damaging impact on our environment, wildlife and humans!

The Environment:

Plastic is made from fossil fuels
It can last for hundreds of years in the environment
Pollutes are oceans
Only a tiny percentage is recycled

Wildlife:

Plastic has been found in the stomachs of marine wildlife
Kills marine animals and birds
Over 70,000 animals are killed or injured by litter in the environment every year

Humans:

Since wildlife consume the plastic, it is also in our food chain
Single use plastic has been found to cause hormone disruption and cancers
Litter strewn streets have been found to reduce house prices by up to 12%
Money spent cleaning streets equates to £1 billion every year, that’s the same as employing 38,633 social care workers, 33,200 nurses or 29,600 paramedics.
An unkept environment not only encourages negative behaviour but it has also been found to cause stress to lose who live there.

You can be part of the solution today!

We have created a subscription package to help clean up our environment!

Subscribe to receive a different engaged marine animal cuddly toy every three months, whilst supporting us to remove litter from our coastline.

Subscribe here!