Cruel, but I had no choice. If we carry on creating and consuming plastic as we are now, and hoping that trainer innovation will do the heavy lifting (it won’t), by 2050 there will more pieces of plastic in the ocean than there are fish. It seems overwhelming. Almost every piece of plastic ever produced that has not been burned (burning causes toxic emissions), still exists. But I am excited by the New Plastics Economy, an initiative launched by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, offering a vision of a global economy where plastics never become waste, and how we achieve that goal step by step. Admittedly it was endorsed by 40 major brands, some of which have made fortunes exploiting single-use plastic packaging. But it’s smart, it’s bold and it gives us a plan to disrupt our pattern of use, redesign plastic as a material and get a grip. Unilever has already announced that by 2025, all of its plastic packaging will be fully reusable, recyclable or compostable.

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