We all have the images of plastic products flooding in the ocean next to fish and turtles, (plastic) waste piled up at beaches or turtles starving to death as they have eaten only plastic bags they mistook for jellyfish.

As a fact, the world is producing a lot of plastic, with only a small portion of is being recycled or treated in an environmentally safe and adequate way. The majority ends up in landfills, nature and oceans or is being incinerated.

High-income countries including most of Europe, North America or Australia have a very effective waste management with secure landfills so that plastic waste is adequately managed. In low-to-middle-income countries like many countries in Africa or South Asia 80-90% of the plastic is not managed in an environmentally safe way polluting oceans and rivers.

Plastic pollution is a huge threat to food safety and quality, human health, coastal tourism and the climate change. Marine plastic pollution is an even bigger global problem affecting the tourism industry significantly.

It is such a huge threat as plastic can take hundreds of years to break down and in doing so it leaves very small plastic pieces behind. These pieces known as microplastic has already been found in marine species that are consumed by humans.