Plastic Fantastic

Professor Richard Thompson OBE features in a new three-part BBC Radio 4 series about our love/hate relationship with plastic.
Marine litter, microplastics on the beach.

BBC Radio 4's Plastic Fantastic examines how plastic materials have become part of our everyday lives but also how they have become a global problem. 

Professor Thompson - one of the foremost international experts on the issue of marine plastic pollution - features in all three episodes, which will also explore efforts to find a global solution to the issue of plastic waste.

Plastic pollution and the planet

In the UK, scientists have for years been saying that more needs to be done to combat the problems posed by marine litter and microplastics. But it is only by creating a sea change in public ways of thinking that we can bring about a positive change.

Washing clothes releases thousands of synthetic micro fibres 

More than 700,000 microscopic fibres could be released into waste water during each use of a domestic washing machine, with many of them likely to pass through sewage treatment and into the environment.

Strandings of North East Atlantic pink sea fans

Pink sea fans are a protected species, yet hundreds of sea fans are found on beaches around the South West UK, entangled in marine debris.