The average person now ingests five grams of plastic each week, the equivalent of a credit card, a new report by WWF has found.

Researchers found that people are consuming up to 102,000 tiny pieces of plastic of less than 1mm - 250 grams each year - with nearly 90 per cent coming from water, both bottled and tap.

Other foods with highest plastic levels include shellfish, beer and salt.

Alec Taylor, Head of Marine Policy at WWF, said: “Plastic is polluting our planet in the deepest ocean trenches, but now we know that it’s also polluting our own bodies, through the food we eat and the water we drink.

“This report must serve as a wake-up call to the UK Government - we don’t want plastic in our oceans, and we don’t want it on our plates.”

Plastic is now so ubiquitous in nature that is has been found at the bottom of the Mariana trench, locked in Arctic sea ice, and littering the remote peaks of the French Pyrenees.