I first met Lucy for a beach clean in Cornwall a decade ago, just as I took the helm of Surfers Against Sewage, a charity dedicated to the protection of oceans, waves, beaches and wildlife. We picked up crisp packets, cotton bud sticks, plastic bottles and all sorts of plastic that simply shouldn’t have been on the beach. This was long before plastic pollution was making daily headlines, or community-driven plastic campaigns were causing shockwaves across government and industry. Lucy is one of the true plastic pollution pioneers.
It is the beach environment that first exposed the damage caused by humanity’s addiction to plastic and the haemorrhaging systems that are generating a tidal wave of plastic pollution: a juxtaposition of excessive and unnecessary consumption set against some of the most beautiful places on earth. Picture-postcard places. Those most connected with our oceans and coastlines – surfers, beach lovers, swimmers, sailors – were the canary in the coalmine. Some of the first to see tidelines of plastic: some of the first to question why it was there. The first to sound the alarm.
But how did it get to this?
Plastic is an extraordinary material – flexible, colourful, light, abundant and almost indestructible. It has had an impact on every human industry and revolutionised the very way we live. It has helped us explore the farthest reaches of the planet, from the deepest ocean trenches to the highest mountain ranges, and even beyond our atmosphere, through space travel.
Plastic is also an extraordinary pollutant. Flexible, colourful, light, abundant and almost indestructible: the very properties that make it so useful also make it problematic when it escapes into the environment. The sea is often the final destination of plastic waste, as it is carried by winds, streams, rivers and currents into oceanic whirlpools of pollution. Indeed, it seems increasingly unlikely that a pristine, ‘plastic-free’ environment today truly exists on any part of Planet Earth, or should I say Planet Ocean. As Jacques Cousteau said, ‘Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.’
However, plastic is also becoming an extraordinary unifier. The qualities which make it so useful and so problematic make it the pollutant that everyone can see, identify and respond to in their everyday lives. The millions of tonnes of plastics that enter our oceans annually are the same as the millions of tonnes that people interact with every day in our shops, restaurants, homes and offices.
The tideline on most beaches usually has the same plastic brand profile as any homogenised high street. Immediately recognisable to anyone taking part in a beach clean, this jetsam is a warning sign of a failing linear economy, excessive packaging, planned obsolescence, big oil interests, poor resource management and fragmented recycling systems.
Scenes of beaches, cities and wilderness choked with plastic have also generated a tidal wave of social action. To quote Jacques Cousteau again, ‘The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.’
The ubiquitous nature of plastic pollution and its relevance to our daily lives is perhaps unique among the most ominous pollutants of our times. Unlike carbon dioxide and other invisible contaminants, we can all visualise it as part of our daily existence.
A global army of beach clean volunteers today tackles the plastic pollution at the frontline, where land and sea converge, interlocked by a swathe of plastic. Removing and recycling as much plastic as possible from our beaches, streets and countryside is important work: every piece removed a victory in its own right, a small battle won. However, we know that we can’t simply pick our way out of the problem. We must urgently focus efforts further upstream in the war on avoidable plastics. Plastic in our environment is not litter. It is a pollutant from fast business serving society in the wrong way while outsourcing the cost to Mother Nature.
Our political leaders must take bold, decisive steps to break this industry and society’s love affair with single-use plastics. In the UK, the extension of the five-pence plastic bag charge, the microbead ban and a UK-wide deposit refund system can be great steps to reduce the plastic footprint that is trampling our natural world. But these measures are only the start.
Industry transparency and accountability, taking full responsibility for its plastic emissions, is essential to driving more sustainable, circular systems and products. Governments must legislate to incentivise businesses to reconsider their plastic footprint and decouple from pointless plastics, which no one actually wants. Progressive businesses must use plastic-free policies as a market advantage to respond to the growing global community that demands it.
We must reinvent our relationship with single-use plastic to eliminate, replace and recycle plastics faster and more effectively. Plastic production is already rampant and is set to increase massively in the next twenty-five years. And all this avoidable plastic is made from oil: oil that is pumped from the ground beneath oceans, fields, countryside and precious wilderness. Boycotting single-use plastic is also taking a stand against new oil exploration and extraction – a double high-five for the planet.
The time for action is now, and it’s up to each of us not to kick the plastic bottle down the street. We can all reduce our plastic footprint, and Lucy and her strategies in this book will show you how. Every day, every week, every consumer choice we make. A consumer revolt against avoidable plastics is already under way. World leaders are responding. Businesses are seeing that they need to change. But we must keep up the pressure. We cannot put the genie of plastic pollution back in the bottle.
Together we can create a plastic-free future.
Hugo Tagholm
CEO, Surfers Against Sewage
Cornwall, 10 May 2018