If you want to save the oceans, says Tom Chivers in the I newspaper, stop recycling plastic. Most people who study this stuff agree. The reason is that a lot of the West’s “recycled” plastic is shipped off to Asian countries to be processed, much of which ends up in the ocean. While only about 0.05% of UK plastic waste is dumped into the environment, the figure is 6.5% in the Philippines, 19% in China and 20% in India.
Instead, we should put plastic in non-recycling bins, so it’ll end up in landfill. “Modern landfills are pretty good”: they have high-strength “geotextile” fabrics at the bottom so liquids can’t leach out, and they’re divided into sealed sub-compartments from which the contents can’t escape. Once your landfill is full you can cover it up and farm on it, or build something fun, like a golf course. “And nothing in that landfill is going to end up in the ocean.”