THE BBC's recent Blue Planet II series entranced readers around the world. Never have our oceans, or the myriad of creatures which live there, looked so strange, so mysterious, or so beautiful.

But if Blue Planet II could delight us, it also had the power to shock - and never more so than in that powerful final episode, which looked at the impact that man and his activities is having on the oceans and on the marine life to which they are home.

That final episode included a heart-rending scene in which albatross parents were unwittingly feeding their chicks plastic.

Sir David Attenborough, who narrated the series, wrote a powerful piece in the Radio Times to coincide with the broadcast of the episode in which he raged against the damage that we are doing.

"For me, there was no scene in the Blue Planet II series more heart-rending than one in this week’s programme," he wrote. "In it, as snowflakes settle on the ground, a baby albatross lies dead, its stomach pierced by a plastic toothpick fed to it by its own mother, having mistaken it for healthy food. "Nearby lies plastic litter that other hungry chicks have regurgitated.

"Being fed lethal plastic debris is a risk that every young albatross now faces. This one scene symbolises a major problem that today threatens all sea creatures worldwide. Plastic is now found everywhere in the ocean, from its surface to its greatest depths."

According to Sir David, we now dump around eight million tonnes of plastic into the sea every year.

There are pieces of plastic so big that they 'entangle the heads of fish, birds and turtles, and slowly strangle them,' Sir David wrote.

But plastic can also breakdown into tiny pieces that enter the food chain, endangering wildlife and human health.

Some piece of plastic are 'so small that they are mistaken for food and eaten, accumulating in fishes’ stomachs, leaving them undernourished', Sir David wrote. "And while in the sea, this debris may combine with other toxic chemicals that we have dumped in the ocean adding, some suspect, to the chemical contamination that we’re already seeing in a variety of sea creatures."

He's not the only one to have noticed this, of course. Marine biologists and environmental scientists have been warning us for years of the devastating impact our obsession with plastic is having on the seas and on marine life.

Five years ago, in his book Ocean of Life: How Our Seas Are Changing, University of York marine conservationist Prof Callum Roberts described the great Pacific 'gyre' - a Texas-sized patch of floating plastic and other man-made junk gathered by currents to float in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

It was irresistible to albatrosses, he said. They'd fly thousands of miles across the ocean to gather food for their young, swoop on the bits of floating plastic, and carry them home to feed to their chicks - which then starved to death, their bellies distended with indigestible junk.

Last year One Green Planet, an online forum for those concerned about the impact we're having on our fragile world, published a list of five types of marine animals being killed by plastic trash in the sea.

The list included:

  • Sea Turtles, which often mistake plastic waste for food, and can end up with blocked digestive systems
  • Seals and sea lions - plastic packing bands and rubber bands can become so embedded in these animals' flesh as they thrash about trying to escape that they can lead to infection and death
  • Whales and dolphins, which like other marine life often mistake plastic debris for food.

In one heartbreaking case recently reported on by Sky News, a Cuvier's beaked whale stranded near Bergen in Norway was found to have died with a stomach full of plastic bags. It was dubbed the 'plastic whale' - a name which does little to capture the full horror of how its life ended.

There are signs that, belatedly (no doubt Blue Planet II is having an effect) we are waking up to the appalling consequences of our use of plastic - a material that, once produced, can take hundreds of years to decompose.

Iceland recently became the first major retailer in the UK to commit to eliminating all plastic packaging (though only for its own brand products) - setting itself a target of five years to do so.

Restaurant chains - including, most recently, Wagamama - have announced they will end the use of plastic straws. And a new, Europe-wide strategy announced this month has pledged that all plastic packaging across Europe should be recyclable or reusable by the end of the next decade.

Under the EU plans, an additional 100 million Euros (£89million) will be provided for developing smarter and more recyclable plastic materials, making recycling processes more efficient - and tracing and removing hazardous substances and contaminants from recycled plastics.

Even British politicians are belatedly catching on. Unveiling her long-term plans for the environment a couple of weeks ago, Prime Minister Theresa May pledged to eliminate 'avoidable' plastic waste (sceptics will be wary of that word 'avoidable') within the next 25 years, by measures such as

  • encouraging supermarkets to introduce 'plastic-free' aisles
  • extending the 5p charge form plastic carrier bags to all retailers in England, closing a loophole which excluded smaller shops
  • considering taxes and charges on single-use items such as takeaway trays

So will things change?

Let's hope so.

Cllr Andrew Waller, the executive member with responsibility for the environment on City of York Council, has a story that vividly illustrates just how difficult plastic is to get rid of once it has been made.

"If King Henry VIII had had a plastic water bottle, it would only just be beginning to decay now," he says.

Cllr Waller thinks that we need to completely rethink our relationship with plastic.

"There is so much unnecessary packaging, that ultimately we are all paying for," he says.

He welcomes the Iceland move to reduce plastic packaging. But we should be going much further than waiting for the retail industry to voluntarily reduce packaging, he says. In Germany, the responsibility for recycling packing rests with retailers and the producers of goods. We should be moving to a similar system here, he says - and that would soon lead to a reduction in unnecessary packaging.

As things stand, the cost of trying to recycle the mounds of packaging that we throw out each week falls on local councils. "And at the same time our budgets are very stretched."

Nevertheless, at the moment, it is the council's responsibility to recycle plastic rubbish.

So how do we do in York?

Virtually all plastic bottles put into recycling bins in York are actually recycled. They are collected by Yorwaste, separated into different types of plastics, then despatched to processers in the UK (not in China, thankfully, which recently announced it was no longer willing to recycle so much of our plastic rubbish for us) where it is turned into everything from furniture to carpets.

Unfortunately, at the moment York will only recycle plastic bottles. We're not geared up to recycle other types of plastic rubbish, such as margarine tubs or food trays (see panel).

Cllr Waller is unable to give figures for what percentage of the total amount of plastic thrown away in York this currently unrecyclable plastic represents. But as things stand, most of it will end up being incinerated at Allerton.

Cllr Waller says he has asked Yorwaste to look at finding ways to recycle a broader range of plastic.

But Cllr Andy D'Agorne would like to see York going further.

He'd like to see the city - with the cooperation of the business community through Make it York and the Business Improvement District - introduction a system of reusable cups at coffee ships across the city, with a small deposit paid for each cup to encourage it to be returned.

He'd also like to see more supermarkets following Iceland's example, and also introducing plastic-free aisles.

Cllr Waller agrees with that. There's no reason why food couldn't be packaged using, for example, starch-based materials instead of plastic that could be easily recycled, he says.

Ultimately, it is likely to be consumer power which will force retailers and the packaging industry to change.

If enough people make it clear that they don't want reams of unnecessary packaging, it will soon start to be reduced. Then at least that island of floating garbage in the middle of the Pacific might not get any bigger...

RECYCLING PLASTIC IN YORK

At the moment, City of York can recycle any size or colour of plastic bottles (including the lids) but no other type of plastic container.

Plastic items that can be recycled include:

• milk, water, fruit juice, squash and fizzy drinks bottles

• probiotic drink bottles (not pots)

• detergent and fabric conditioner bottles

• household cleaning bottles (including toilet cleaner and bleach)

• toiletry bottles including make-up/cleanser, shampoo, conditioner and bubble bath bottles

Plastic items that cannot be recycled in York (and which should NOT therefore be put into your green recycling box) are:

• 'mixed' plastic e.g. plastic food wrapping, food trays, margarine tubs, yogurt pots, toys; these should be placed in your landfill bin.

Hard plastics, such as those used to make child car seats and kerbside recycling boxes, are collected at the household waste recycling centres.

In 2016/17, 890 tonnes of plastic bottles were collected in York, and 440 tonnes of hard plastic.

Non-recyclable plastics, such as margarine tubs, yogurt pots and plastic toys, are sent to the Allerton Waste Recovery Plant, near Knaresborough for incineration.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

  • It may seem too big a problem for any one person to make a difference. But there are things you can do, says One Green Planet. They include:
  • Clean up after yourself. Don't leave litter anywhere where it can blow away - it's quite likely to end up in the sea
  • Recycle as much as you can
  • Say 'no' to plastic packaging. Avoid buying things with ridiculous amounts of packaging; use re-usable bags for your shopping; and if your supermarket does one day get a plastic-free aisle, use it!