Beating plastic pollution is the theme of World Environment Day 2018. Chris Lloyd looks at the problem, and what steps you can take to make a difference

TODAY is World Environment Day, a day designated by the Union Nations to encourage people around the globe to consider their impact upon the environment.

The first World Environment Day was held in 1972, but never can the UN have chosen a more important theme: Beat Plastic Pollution.

Plastic is the scourge of the modern environment because it never really disappears. Over the decades, battered by wind and tide, it just gets smaller and smaller until it reaches a size ideal for marine life to gobble up, or it becomes so small that humans drink it up without noticing: 83 per cent of the world’s tap water contains plastic particles; 90 per cent of the world’s bottled water is similarly infected.

This problem has deepened since the 1950s, and is getting worse at an exponential rate. This year alone, global manufacturers will produce about 360m tonnes of plastic; by 2025, at current growth rates, they will produce 500m tonnes, and by 2030, 619m tonnes.

Nearly all of which is destined to end up in either landfill or the environment.

Of course, the developing world has the biggest problems. Ten of the world’s rivers carry 90 per cent of the world’s plastic pollution, and they are all in Africa, India or the Far East. The Yangtze in China is the most polluted, carrying 1.4m tonnes of plastic into the oceans every year, but other famous water sources like the Nile, the Ganges and the Mekong are in the top ten.

This year’s World Environment Day is hosted by India, which is trumpeting its attempts to beat plastic pollution. For example, five trawlers off Kevala beach have given up fishing and been converted into full time plastic-catchers. So far this year, 25 tonnes of plastic have been trawled from the sea, and a beachside machine has chomped it all up into road surfacing.

Last Sunday, Versova beach in Mumbai hosted what may be the world’s largest beach clean: 6,000 people turned out, including famous cricketers, and collected 200,000kg of plastic.

So if it is largely their problem, should we care?

While the rivers Tees, Wear and Swale are not in the global top ten, they are our local precious environment, and there is a problem. In Teesdale and Swaledale, beside the most crystal clear streams, there are trees festooned with black plastic wrappings of old silage bags.

On the verges beside our A-roads, there is an extraordinary crop of plastic bottles and coffee cups tossed from car windows. Wait until the winter when the vegetation has died down and stop at one of the hotspots that ring a town like Darlington – there seems to be an optimum distance at which the contents have been consumed and the containers need to be jettisoned – and you will be amazed at how much plastic there is compacted among the roots.

And turn a stone on the tideline at Saltburn beach and you could find scores of almost invisible plastic stalks from cotton buds which are so thin they evade the water company’s filters.

Saltburn, where there is an excellent community litter pick every month, is not quite Versova, but to a turtle with a stalk stuck in its nose, it doesn’t really matter where the problem originated.

And, of course, the UK, as the fifth biggest economy in the world, has to lead by example. We introduced our plastic bag tax in 2015, removing 85 per cent of bags from circulation. Despite the nay-sayers, it has been a success, and it is no coincidence that nearly all of the 24 African countries that have bag bans have introduced them since our success.

They, though, are now taking the lead from us. Kenya has introduced fines for people caught using plastic bags and businesspeople caught making or importing them face up to four years in jail!

Which puts our Government’s attempts at changing its people’s behaviour in the shade. Environment Secretary Michael Gove said plastic pollution was a “worldwide emergency” but only announced consultations on imposing single use taxes on plastic bottles and plastic straws – he effectively kicked the problem into the litter-strewn long grass.

But World Environment Day is not really about governments. It is about people, and this year, people are being urged to take five steps to #beatplasticpollution:

1. Ask for non-plastic packaging in shops: amazingly, a survey only last week showed how in nearly all supermarkets it is more expensive to buy loose fruit and vegetables than it is to buy pre-packed items that are cocooned in plastic casings.

2. Say no to plastic bags: the Government is slowly getting round to introducing the 5p charge to all retailers in the UK

3. Say no to plastic cutlery: the growth of “healthy eating” at lunchtime has produced a mountain of salads in single-use plastic bowls to be eaten by single-use plastic cutlery. Take your own from home

4. Carry a refillable water bottle or coffee cup: if you are going to carry a plastic bottle or cup, how can it be more inconvenient not to hold a reusable one?

5. Pick up plastic: in Sweden, there’s a new fashionable way of taking exercise called “plogging”. It’s from the Swedish word “plocka upp” which means “to pick up” – you run as you pick up, and your extra movements and the extra weight you end up carrying mean you burn more calories. Even if plogging is not for you, from Darlington to Heighington to Saltburn, there are little picks and street cleans which are taking rubbish out of the environment to help #beatplasticpollution.