The 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) brought ocean issues back into the global spotlight. Delegates from over 100 countries convened to reaffirm commitments to SDG 14: Life Below Water, address overfishing and clamp down on marine pollution. The tone was urgent, the diversity of stakeholders impressive and the pledges ambitious - but the gap between promises and action remains as wide as ever, with a clear lack of dedicated funding to prevent plastic and microplast

UK consumers use 25 billion single-use bottles yearly, over 6.5 billion of which are not recycled. That’s over 17 million plastic, glass, aluminium or steel bottles daily, contributing to polluted beaches, oceans and a growing emissions problem. You might have heard of the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), a simple yet powerful environmental initiative that places a small refundable deposit - around 20p - on single-use drinks containers. Consumers can get their deposit back upon

In 2016, headlines proclaimed that by 2050, plastic in the ocean could outweigh fish. The science behind this claim is weak - estimating biomass is notoriously difficult - but the message is no less important. The real issue isn’t a race between fish and plastic. It’s the failure of governments, industries and global systems to prevent known harm. At the 2025 UN Ocean Conference (UNOC), governments once again pledged action on marine pollution. But critics, including ClientEa

Coca-Cola has heavily promoted recycling as a solution to the problem of plastic pollution and environmental harm. This has unfairly shifted the burden of responsibility for plastic pollution onto consumers. Coca-Cola can continue to produce large quantities of cheap plastic bottles without any accountability, whilst the public takes the blame for litter. Recycling is a false solution to the plastic problem. Only 9% of plastic has ever been recycled. Many plastics can’t be re

For decades, we were told the recycling system was working. Sort your plastics, leave them at the kerb, and trust that they will find a new life. In 2026, that story is falling apart. The UK's plastics recycling sector is in freefall. In 2022, the country had 1.1 million tonnes of plastic recycling capacity. Within just 18 months, an estimated 260,000 tonnes per year of that capacity had been lost due to site closures. In the last two years alone, 21 recycling operations acro

While clothes made of recycled plastic may sound like a good idea, they can cause environmental harm at multiple levels. First, recycled polyester used to produce textiles comes mostly from plastic bottles rather than from textile waste. This means that recyclable plastic bottles get downcycled into clothes, which cannot be further recycled and instead end in landfill or incinerators. The second problem is the greenwashing of plastic-made garments by the fashion industry. Cur

Solving the plastics crisis isn’t simple. Instead of focusing on recycling, research tells us that we need to think more broadly by looking at strategies like re-use. If we can embrace this concept globally, we have the opportunity to truly cut plastic pollution. Single-use plastics are the biggest culprit behind plastic pollution, making up around 50% of plastic produced. Often touted as recyclable, only about 5% of plastic is actually recycled in the US. A recent analysis o