The ocean contains thousands of pieces of plastic that could be entering some our favourite dishes, but what can you do to help?
Did you know that the average Londoner buys more than three single use plastic (SUP) water bottles every week? That adds up to be an eye-watering 175 bottles every year per person, making that a grand total of 7.7 billion plastic bottles purchased across the UK every year. Not only is this a huge contributor to SUP waste, but it is now impacting our surrounding ocean and the marine life that live within it.
Recent data collected by the PADI AWARE Foundation, a non-profit working with recreational SCUBA divers, shows that there is now eight million pieces of plastic entering the ocean every day, with 46,000 pieces of plastic in the ocean per square mile. In the UK, plastic debris from fishing gear and food wrapping are dominant, and there are now places on this planet where it’s estimated that plastic parts per million outweigh plankton in our ocean water.