A few months ago, I wrote in this column about the need to reduce the amount of single use plastics that were finding their way into our oceans. At the time, it was somewhat of a niche issue but thanks to the brilliance of the BBC’s Blue Planet 2, there is a widespread view that we cannot continue to allow so much plastic to be dumped into our seas.
Footage of the whale still dragging along her dead calf, probably killed by the toxicity of her own milk after she’d ingested so much micro-plastics should motivate us all. So too the dead albatross whose stomach had been punctured by a plastic toothpick. Or the sea turtle who had to have a plastic drinking straw removed from its nose. Or the countless fish we saw caught up in plastic netting.
The scale of the challenge is massive and with 8 million tonnes of plastic ending up in our oceans each year, it’s tempting to ask what difference we can individually make. Yet the reality is that if each of us just tried to use one less piece of plastic each day, the cumulative effect around the world would be huge. We could order our drinks without straws. Use a refillable water bottle. Choose fruit and vegetables that weren’t in plastic packaging. Or make an extra effort to remember to bring old bags from home when going out shopping. As we individually make those choices, the market will inevitably react to the change in demand.
My own vice, for example, is Diet Coke. I drink loads of it and until recently it was almost always from the 500ml plastic bottles. As a temporary solution, I’ve switched to aluminium cans but I’d like to see Coca-Cola switching back to glass bottles instead. The way to achieve that is through assigning a value to the plastic through a deposit return scheme. That way, we motivate people to return their plastic bottles and in the process, make glass bottles no less inconvenient. Most fizzy drinks fans will tell you it tastes better from a glass bottle anyway!