1. Martinko, K.: ‘“A Plastic Tide” film depicts shocking plastic pollution worldwide’, Treehugger, 26 January 2017.
2. Nac, Trevor: ‘We’re Now At A Million Plastic Bottles Per Minute – 91% Of Which Are Not Recycled’, Forbes.com, 26 July 2017.
3. Clarke Fox, C.: ‘Drinking Water: Bottled or From the Tap?’, National Geographic Kids, Info graphic, 2016.
4. Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
5. Geyer, R., Jambeck, J. R., Lavender Law, K.: ‘Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made’, Science Advances, 19 Jul 2017: vol. 3, no. 7, e1700782.
6. www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/publications/the-new-plastics-economy-rethinking-the-future-of-plastics-catalysing-action
7. Cohen, J.: ‘A Plastic Planet’, The Current, UC Santa Barbara, CA, 19 July 2017.
8. Craftech: ‘Which plastic materials are used in Barbie dolls?’ http://www.craftech ind.com/plastic-materials-usedin-barbie-dolls/
9. But sustainability is also open to interpretation, and suffers from a lack of legal definition and precision. Sustainability can also be prone to over-claiming, particularly by global brands whose advertising campaigns would lead you to do some thinking. You may hear them claiming that they have single-handedly discovered a way to stop global warming, when they’re actually just bringing a new chocolate bar or facial scrub to market.
The territory of over-claim and obfuscation is called greenwash – a term coined by Jay Westerveld, a journalist who, in an essay, noted the hypocrisy and irony of notices put up by multinational hotel chains informing humanity that by not washing a towel you are Mother Teresa and Gandhi rolled into one. You need to be on your guard, especially when it comes to turning the tide on plastics, because there is a good deal of ‘plasticwash’ going on.
10. Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Project MainStream, World Economic Forum, McKinsey & Company: The New Plastics Economy, Rethinking the Future of Plastics, 19 January 2016.
11. Hopewell, J; Dvorak, R, Kosior, E.: ‘Plastics recycling: challenges and opportunities’, Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 27 Jul 2009; 364(1526): 2115–2126, doi: 10.1098/rstb. 2008.0311
12. Taylor, M.: ‘$180bn investment in plastic factories feeds global packaging binge’, The Guardian, 26 December 2017.
13. Siegle, L.: ‘One family, one month, 50 kg of packaging. Why?’, Observer Magazine, 29 January 2006.
14. Koltzenburg, T.: High-Barrier Packaging: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, 1 February 2000.
15. Shreeve, J. L.: ‘Recycling industry in a slump’, The Telegraph, 14 November 2008.
16. Bijker, W.: Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change, MIT Press, July 1995.
17. Grew, E. S.: ‘The Plastic Future’, Illustrated London News, 26 June 1943.
18. Grew, ‘The Plastic Future’.
19. Interview with James Honeyborne, Executive Producer, Blue Planet II, as broadcast 16 April 2018. The One Show, BBC1, Plastics Special.
20. James Honeyborne interview, The One Show, 16 April 2018.
21. BPF Response to Iceland’s Announcement, http://www.bpf.co.uk/article/bpf-response-to-icelands-announcement-1261.aspx
22. Wheeler, K.: The dirty man of Europe? Rubbish, recycling and consumption work in England, CRESI WORKING PAPER NUMBER: 2013-01, Department of Sociology University of Essex, ‘Consumption Work and Societal Divisions of Labour’ project, funded by the European Research Council.
23. Robinson, N.: ‘Cutting back packs’, Meat Trades Journal, 28 September 2012.
24. Bouchier, G., Fleming, D., Ingram, M.: ‘UK Recycling Industry Faces Increased Financial Stress As China Closes The Door To Plastic’, Mondaq Business Briefing, 1 March 2018.
25. ‘Colombo: Death toll from rubbish dump collapse rises’, Al Jazeera, 16 April 2017.
26. Chapman, B.: ‘Plastic pollution: Businesses underestimate amount of packaging waste they produce by 50%, report finds; Recycling rate far lower than official figures suggest because of fundamental flaw in way it is worked out, meaning Britain may have missed EU targets for years’, The Independent, 6 March 2018.
27. Wells, L.: ‘UK overestimates plastic recycling by a third, finds report’, Independent Retail News, 6 March 2018.
28. The Future of the Sea report, UK Government, 2018.
29. ‘Keep Britain Tidy’, Journal of Litter and Environmental Quality, Volume 1, Number 1, June 2017.
30. Case Study: We’re Watching You – Beaconsfield Motorway Service Area, March 2015. keepbritaintidy.org/research
31. MacGregor, S.: ‘Why England’s new litter strategy is actually a bit rubbish’, The Conversation, 14 September 2017.
32. Sherrington, C., Dr: ‘Plastics In the Marine Environment’, Eunomia, June 2016.
33. Lebreton, L. C. M., van der Zwet, J., Damsteeg, J.-W., Slat, B., Andrady, A., Reisser, J.: ‘River plastic emissions to the world’s oceans’. Nature Communications. 2017; 8:15611. doi:10.1038/ncomms15611
34. Kinsey, S., MCS: ‘Scale of Plastic Bottle Waste’, written evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee, UK Parliament.
35. I checked with several marine scientists and they confirmed that yes, their nets are made of plastic, which shows how we’re all co-opted into using plastic at some point. An irony, given this study found that at least 46 per cent of the found trash came from fishing nets.
36. Lebreton, L., Slat, B., Sainte-Rose, J., Aitken, R., Marthouse, R., Hajbane, S., Cunsolo, S., Schwarz, A., Levivier, A., Noble, K., Debeljak, P., Maral, H., SchoeneichArgent, R., Brambini, R., Reisser, J.: ‘Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic’, Scientific Reports – Nature, 8, Article No. 4666, published 22 March 2018.
37. Gall, S.C., Thompson, R.C.: ‘The impact of debris on marine life’, Marine Pollution Bulletin, 15 March 2015; 92(1–2):170–179.
38. Napper, I. E., and Thompson, R. C.: ‘Release of synthetic microplastic plastic fibres from domestic washing machines: Effects of fabric type and washing conditions’. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 2016, 112 (1), 39–45.
39. https://www.nurdlehunt.org.uk/take-part/nurdle-map.html
40. Kraft, C. X.: ‘Sperm Whale: Death by 100 Plastic Bags’, 7 June 2012, oceanwildthings.com
41. ‘Marine Litter in Europe Seas: Social Awareness and Co-Responsibility’, D1.1, Review of the Current State of Understanding of the Distribution, Quantities and Types of Marine Litter, EU, July 2013.
42. ‘Marine Litter Report’, Surfers Against Sewage, October 2014.
43. Harvey, C.: ‘The world’s largest beach clean up has cleared more than 4 million pounds of trash’, Washington Post, 15 August 2016.
44. Safi, Michael: ‘Mumbai beach goes from dump to turtle hatchery in two years’, The Guardian, 30 March 2018.
45. ‘Components of GDP: Key Economic Indicators’, Office for National Statistics, UK Parliament Publication, 25 May 2018.
46. Extreme poverty concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY?locations=ZJ-8S-Z4-Z7-ZQ-ZG&start=2013&end=2013 &view=bar
47. Van Sebille, E., Dr Spathi, C., Dr Gilbert, A.: ‘The ocean plastic pollution challenge: towards solutions in the UK’, Grantham Institute briefing paper no. 19, July 2016.
48. Van Sebille, E., et al.: ‘The ocean plastic pollution challenge’.
49. Plamondon, C., Sinha, J.: ‘Life Without Plastic’, extract Daily Mail, 6 February 2018.
50. Divided by 27.1 million households, number of households in the UK Office for National Statistics.
51. Working on the assumption that UK citizens use a similar amount of toothpaste to Americans, given healthcare routines and marketing.
52. Elliot T., Elliot L.: ‘Plastics Consumption and Waste Management, Final Report’, Eunomia, 26 March 2018.
53. Hogg, Dominic, Dr: ‘Plastic Packaging, Shedding Light on the UK Data’, Eumonia, March 2018.
54. UNEP (2014): ‘Valuing Plastics: The Business Case for Measuring, Managing and Disclosing Plastic Use in the Consumer Goods Industry’, Copyright © United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 2014.
55. Laville, S.: ‘Coca-Cola increased its production of plastic bottles by a billion last year, says Greenpeace’, The Guardian, 2 October 2017.
56. To come up with this stat, Julie began with the paper from Jambeck et al, ‘Plastic waste inputs from land into ocean’ https://www.iswa.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Calendar_2011_03_AMERICANA/Science-2015-Jambeck-768-71__2_.pdf
She says, ‘In their model, the way they estimated their famous 8MT a year stat was the following: the percentage of plastic littered in the environment is estimated at 2 per cent of what we consume. So, 2 per cent of your 4,490 = 89.8 items. Then they applied a coefficient to calculate how much of this 2 per cent ends up in the ocean. The coefficient is the percentage of the population of a country living in coastal areas. The hypothesis being that if plastic is littered in a coastal area (say, Margate for instance), it will end up in the sea. In the UK they say that 43,258,889 people lived by the sea in 2016. So, for a UK population of 65,648,100 people in 2016, this represents 66 per cent. 66 per cent of 89.8 = 59.3 items.’ This is how Daniel and Julie estimated the 50 number. They stress it’s a rough estimation based on the hypotheses listed above.
57. Renstrom, R.: ‘Event highlights plastic recycling issues and opportunities’, Plastics News, 5 June 2017.
58. Renstrom: ‘Event highlights plastics recycling issues’.
59. Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Project MainStream, World Economic Forum, McKinsey & Company: The New Plastics Economy, Rethinking the Future of Plastics, 19 January 2016.
60. Sauven, J.: ‘If you care so much, Coke, why aren’t your bottles 100% recycled?’, The Guardian, 13 July 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/13/coca-cola-plastics-pollution-oceans-bottles-packaging-recycling-pr-fizz-green peace-john-sauven
61. ‘Wrap rage: An open and shut case’, Yorkshire Post, 4 February 2004.
62. Balch, O.: ‘Unilever, P&G and Kraft Heinz criticised for recycling label failures’, The Guardian Sustainable Business, 8 December 2016.
63. Go to http://www.findmeamilkman.net and type in your postcode to find a milkman near you.
64. UNEP (2014) ‘Valuing Plastics: The Business Case for Measuring, Managing and Disclosing Plastic Use in the Consumer Goods Industry’.
65. Horman, A. et al.: ‘Holding Thermal Receipt Paper and Eating Food after Using Hand Sanitizer Results in High Serum Bioactive and Urine Total Levels of Bisphenol A (BPA)’, PLOS 22 October 2014.
66. Hamann, R.: ‘The Function and the Design Process’, 15 International Cost Engineering Congress, Rotterdam, 20–22 April 1998.
67. The Bag Broker, https://www.thebagbroker.co.uk/stand-up-pouch.html
68. https://www.standuppouches.net/blog/can-kraft-stand-up-pouches-be-recycled
69. House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee: ‘Disposable Packaging Coffee Cups’, Second Report of Session 2017–19, 19 December 2017, HC267.
70. Turner, J.: ‘Plastic pop bottle decision anxiously awaited by firms’, Globe and Mail (Canada), 17 August 1979.
71. https://www.maccosmetics.com/giving_back/printable_form.tmpl
72. House of Commons Environmental Audit committee, ‘Disposable Packaging: Coffee Cups’, Second Report of Session 2017–19; 19 December 2017, HC 657.
73. HOC Environmental Audit committee, ‘Disposable Packaging: Coffee Cups’.
74. House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, ‘Disposable Packaging: Coffee Cups’, Second Report of Session 2017–19, HC 657. Published on 5 January 2018.
75. Van der Zee, B.: ‘More than 5,000 wet wipes found in an area next to the Thames the size of half a tennis court’, The Guardian, 2 May 2018.
76. Flagstaff magazine for the waste industry, Pennon, Winter 2017/18.
77. Baer, D.: ‘The Keurig K-Cup’s Inventor Says He Feels Bad That He Made It – Here’s Why’, 3 March 2015, https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/243649
78. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ + http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm
79. Author interview and Engle, E.: ‘Parley’s Cyrill Gutsch on Why Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Is Invalid & How to Stop Designing with Plastic’, Core77, 22 Feburary 2018.
80. Slat, B.: ‘How The Oceans Can Clean Themselves’, by Boyan Slat, TEDxDelft, 2012. https://www.tedxdelft.nl/2012/10/video-how-the-oceans-can-clean-themselveboyan-slat-at-tedxdelft/
Boyan Slat transcript: https://singjupost.com/oceans-can-clean-boyan-slat-tedxdelfttranscript/?print=print
81. Kelly, G.: ‘“It’s important to at least try”: Can this 23-year-old clear the oceans of plastic waste?’, The Telegraph, 4 August 2017.