Marine Litter – Are You Eating Plastic for Dinner?

Surfers Against Sewage has launched a crucial new environmental report calling for a 50% reduction in UK beach litter by 2020. The Marine Litter Report, launched in October 2014 at SAS’s inaugural Protect Our Waves All Party Parliamentary Group, highlights the scale of the marine litter crisis and suggests radical new measures to stem the flow of litter to our oceans, waves and beaches. The report calls for cohesive and effective anti-marine litter measures from all sections of society including community action, increased company responsibility and new government legislation.

Surfers Against Sewage suggests innovative new initiatives to stop marine litter at source, including implementing smoking bans on beaches, introducing prominent environmental health warnings on single-use packaging, reinstating container deposit schemes and better enforcing fines for littering along our coastline. The report also calls on the public to refuse single-use plastic products where possible and for industry to be more accountable for the full lifecycle of packaging and products through extended producer responsibility schemes.

Video (c) National Geographic