Thank you for taking the time to view this petition. I think everybody is in agreement that there is clear evidence that plastic pollution is harming our environment, it's everywhere from our towns, to our woodlands, to our mountains and to our seas. What I want to see is the immediate ban on needless plastics that aren't recyclable. There are no need for certain plastic items; look around your own homes or in your shopping baskets and ask yourself, do those items really need to be made out of plastic? 

It is estimated that we generate 5 million tonnes of plastic in the UK every year and do we really need to? There are paper and wood alternatives to a lot of the plastics we create and the wood for these items could come from sustainable forests. Wood and paper can be recycled and even if it isn't recycled it will naturally break down a lot quicker than plastics. Many of the plastics we use are single use - they are produced just to be used for one application one time, often this lasts for a mere few minutes before they are thrown away. It can take 500 years for a single plastic straw to decompose as an example and likewise a plastic bag takes about 100 years to decompose.

Most of the time these plastics break down into smaller pieces which are eaten by animals. These animals get eaten by other animals along with the plastics in them and pretty soon the plastics are in our food that we're eating. 

You might not think the UK can make much of a difference, we're not the biggest nation in the world and we by no means produce or waste the most plastics but if we ban them it's a start. It might be the inspiration that other countries need. When I was younger someone said to me 'Be the change you wish to see', I didn't know what this meant when I was a kid but I now realise the change I want to see is less plastic polluting the environment and going through the food chain. 

Every signature helps. We've all seen the images from David Attenborough's documentaries and the damage done by us to environments both close to home and many miles away out to sea. The time for change is now, our generation might be the last generation that can stop the damage the environment before it becomes too late. Please help be the change we all wish to see.

 

I propose the following plastics should be banned in the UK as a matter of urgency:

Plastic straws - Replace these with paper straws

Plastic carrier bags - These can be replaced with paper bags, they might be less hardy but we can always double bag if we need to.

Sweet wrappers - Is there any need for plastic sweet wrappers or can they be made from foil or wax paper?

Plastic cord around items such as furniture - Replace this with rope instead

Plastic clothes pegs - These can easily be replaced with wooden ones

Plastic netting on fruit - Why not just have loose fruit and paper bags to put them in?

Plastic wrapping on the outside of cards - We used to have stickers on the back of cards, we now have a plastic sleeve over cards which get thrown away as soon as we buy the card

Styrofoam packing nuts - Why not replace this with old newspaper scrunched up into balls?

Plastic wrapping around catalogues - If they're getting posted through letterboxes why do they need to be wrapped in plastic which is only going to be thrown away?

Plastic takeout boxes - These can be replaced with cardboard takeout boxes

Plastic around 6 packs of beer - These can be replaced by cardboard holders, animals regularly get trapped in these plastic 6 pack holders

Plastic on cotton buds - Why not replace the cotton bud stick with wood instead of plastic

Plastic cutlery - Disposable cutlery could easily be replaced with wooden cutlery

Disposable cups - These could all be paper or cardboard cups

Plastic bottles - Charge an extra 10p per bottle and encourage people to recycle them by returning bottles to get the 10p per bottle back.

 

These are just a few of the needless plastics that get wasted every single day across the UK and the world. I would like to see these banned by the government and a legal responsibility put on companies to reduce plastic waste and look at alternative packaging. Thank you for signing, if you can please share this petition along with the hashtag #BeTheChangeYouWishToSee