Plastic pollution is a threat to our health and it must be tackled – Helen Martin

DURING this Covid year, the environmental atmosphere has improved thanks to lockdown, but the global mission to save the planet from extensive pollution and destruction has been put on hold.

David Attenborough has warned us about the danger of ecological disaster (Picture: PA)

Meanwhile, many horrors are still getting worse which could mean major effects on our health, economy, jobs and creatures.

We’ve seen David Attenborough’s series and many more exposures of the vast dump of our plastics in the oceans and how it kills sea-life and pollutes the world.

But a recent piece of international research between Exeter and Queensland universities has discovered that anyone eating seafood from oysters and squid, to shell-fish and fish, is also eating plastic. They found a gram of sardine tissue contains 2.9 mg of plastic particles. It’s spreading into sea salt, and even beer and honey and other non-marine foods.

The problems that seem likely to follow are people avoiding seafood at least, which would affect the fishing industries, restaurants, producers and retailers. Globally we are also dealing with Covid-19, for the UK there’s Brexit, both costing billions, and around the world there are wars, persecution and climate collapse.

Perhaps the top priority is an international ban on plastic packaging, nets, bottles and even recycled plastic in clothes, shoes, and anything else.

Consuming plastic can lead to organ failure, limited child development and other illnesses plus each year up to a million people in poor countries die from diseases caused by living amid plastic pollution, and the diseases it causes.

Isn’t all that even worse than Covid-19?