Industry is often quick to play down the effects of plastic pollution on health, but this seriously complacent attitude is putting us all at risk. Despite a whole host of studies raising grave concerns about the chronic health problems that plastic has been linked to, both government and industry is failing to do anything about it.

The scale of the plastic health crisis is truly alarming. As well as contaminating water supplies, it’s clear that plastic is tainting the food we eat. A 2016 study by the University of Ghent revealed that Britons who eat seafood risk ingesting up to 11,000 pies of plastic every year. Fish stocks are now so full of plastic that up to one-third of the fish caught off the coast of South West England is thought to contain traces of it.

It’s now getting so bad that the UN is being forced to step in. A ground-breaking UN Environment Project Report warned last year that people who consumer plastic-contaminated fish could be exposed to substances that cause genetic disruption, infertility, and even poisoning. With more and more plastic finding its way into oceans, rivers, and reservoirs every day, the plastic health crisis is only set to get worse in the decades ahead.