Greenpeace is calling on governments to ban key sources of marine plastics as a crucial first step, including phasing out single-use plastic items, such as packaging and microbeads. Any company or business producing plastic items, such as packaging, must be held to account under mandatory Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) to contribute to the solution.

Plastic has flooded our daily lives, reflective of a throwaway culture since much of the plastic is used to manufacture a variety of single-use items including packaging.

Global plastics production has skyrocketed in the last 50 years, and especially in recent decades. In 2002-2013 alone, it increased approximately 50 percent to 299 million tonnes from 204 million tonnes. This figure is expected to exceed an estimated 500 million tonnes per year by 2020 (1), which would represent a 900 percent increase on 1980 levels.