British naturalist David Attenborough has said that people are changing their habits when it comes to plastic waste, following the global impact of the broadcaster’s Blue Planet II documentary and the campaigning of young people.
In September millions of young people flooded the streets of cities around the world demanding political leaders to take urgent steps to stop climate change, uniting in a worldwide protest inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.
Alarmed by images of the Greenland ice sheets melting and the Amazon rain forests burning, protesters abandoned schools, shops and offices in nearly every corner of the globe, aiming to stop what they saw as a looming environmental catastrophe.
The world produced about 242 million tons of plastic waste in 2016, according to the World Bank. The United Nations estimates that 100 million tonnes of plastic have been dumped in the oceans to date.
In August this year tiny pieces of plastic – known as microplastic – were even found in ice cores drilled in the Arctic.