Thread by @CharlieJGardner

We all know that plastic is now everywhere, but the great drifts of it on the world’s beaches barely scratch the surface of the plastic pollution problem

Here’s a thread on just how deep the crisis goes

🧵1/

It's in the earth beneath our feet, buried underground

In places it has already become the earth, forming new kinds of rock known as pyroplastics and plastiglomerates

2/

It covers the oceans in great floating islands, and has reached the deepest trenches

It’s in the bellies of
-albatrosses and penguins🐧
-fish 🦈🐟
- turtles
- and whales🐳

And it is killing them

3/

Broken down into microplastics and nanoplastics, it’s in the air we breathe

4/

It’s in the water we drink, whether from a tap or a bottle

There can be an incredible 240,000 particles in 1 litre of bottled mineral water

5/

Plastic is in the food we eat – not just in seafood, but in fruits and vegetables, in meat, and in plant-based proteins

6/

And not surprisingly, it is in us
It is in our kidneys
In our lungs
In our blood
In our breast milk

7/

Terrifyingly, it’s even able to cross from the mother’s side of the placenta to the foetus’s, so it may be in babies before they’re born

8/

So what’s the plan?

Well, the oil industry's plan is to massively increase plastic production, since they'll need something to do with the oil they know they won't be able to burn

But as @lucysiegle says, "either plastic wins or we do"

We must not let them do it

9/9