The holiday plastic choking our oceans

With summer upon us, many of us are no doubt looking forward to sun-filled holidays by the sea. But just how much plastic are we leaving behind?

Our new report shows that holidaymakers cause almost a 40% spike in plastic entering the Mediterranean Sea each summer – choking birds, fish and turtles. And the majority of this waste comes from Turkey and Spain, followed by Italy, Egypt and France – countries where over 34 million Brits are preparing to holiday this year.

With plastic pollution choking our seas and killing our wildlife, we’re calling on everyone to #PassOnPlastic this summer, and join our fight against plastic pollution.

Here are just some of the shocking stats from our report – all urgent reasons to take action:

• One sea turtle out of two has ingested plastic, while 90% of the world’s sea birds have fragments of plastic in their stomach.
• Europe is the second largest plastics producer in the world, dumping as much as 500,000 tonnes of plastic in the sea every year – the equivalent of 66,000 full rubbish trucks!
• Around 700 marine species are threatened by plastics – with 344 species found trapped in plastic globally.
• Microplastics have reached record levels in the Mediterranean. Someone eating fish in Europe could ingest up to 11,000 pieces of microplastic per year.
• Without action, by 2050 there could be more plastic in the sea than fish.