This week is the week of World Environment Day, and this year's theme is something that has been steadily filtering through the public consciousness in recent years: plastic pollution.
Did you realise...
5 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year
500 million plastic drinking straws are used every day in the US alone
13 million tonnes of plastic waste find their way into the ocean each year
1 million plastic bottles are bough every minute
100,000 marine animals are killed by plastics every year
83% of tap water has been found to contain plastic particles
50% of consumer plastics are single use
Wildlife Warriors
Our Managing Director, Jodie Read, joined Gwent Wildlife Trust's Magor Marsh Wildlife Warriors youth group and leaders last month, spending an evening picking up plastic waste from the foreshore of the Severn Estuary.
The group collected 12 full bags of plastic between Undy Causeway and Collister Pill in just under an hour - a great achievement, but also a stark reminder of the sheer amount of plastic waste littering our environment globally and locally.
Want to be part of the solution?
Pledge to reduce your plastic use by taking part in the World Environment Day's global game of Plastic Tag - remember to use the hashtag #beatplasticpollution and mention @UNEnvironment!
Visit one of these sites to find a plastic clean up event in your area: http://www.plasticpatrol.co.uk/ https://www.mcsuk.org/get-active/beachcleans https://www.sas.org.uk/our-work/beach-cleans/
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