Plastic can affect human health, destroy ecosystems and harm wildlife especially marine species.

• Plastic is very slow to degrade. Typically, paper takes 2- 5  months to degrade, cotton 12months, leather 25- 50 years but plastic takes 500 years which makes it have a severe  impact on our environment. By 2050 there will be more plastic in our sea than fish.
• Over 8 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the world’s oceans every year which accumulate in gyres where ocean currents rotate. Gyres are full of plastic waste including plastic bottles, bottle caps, and plastic bags
• One of these gyres – the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is  three times the size of France and growing all the time
• Plastic in the sea gradually breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces due to the action of the waves and sunlight. Really small pieces are known as microplastics
• The largest source of microplastics is synthetic textiles containing polyester, nylon and acrylic fibres. (Horiba) 
• Microbeads are even smaller microplastics . They are added as exfoliants to health and beauty products like cleansers and toothpastes to control viscosity. These easily pass through water filtration systems and end up in our oceans and lakes posing a threat to aquatic life
• Sometimes aquatic life mistake plastic for food. When fish eat plastic toxins from the plastic start to accumulate and the fish slowly gets poisoned. A third of fish in UK waters have microplastics in their bodies.
• Studies found that young fish who have ingested  microplastics  swim more slowly and have stunted growth which has been attributed to microplastics.
• Microplastics have also been found in tap water and even breast milk