19th July ’17: The trouble with plastic

Welcome to Wednesday.

Yesterday evening, the floor of Colour File HQ was awash with plastic. My second-in-command was ankle-deep in Lego (I think we may soon be classified as a superstore), while I was busy admiring the assorted hues of my ever-growing plastic rubbish collection (here’s just some of it – see pics). Every time I go to a beach or by the Thames, I find rainbow rubbish, from tiny shards (that only a colour-freak like me would probably notice), to bottle tops and the pastel-coloured sticks from cotton buds. I don’t even have to look that hard: there’s heaps of the stuff. As the tide goes out, it leaves these sad treasures as a reminder of how much plastic we churn out. My finds are stuff we’ve all rejected and binned and yet we still find reasons to produce more (I’m as guilty as anyone – definitely a case of ‘Could do better.’) I was interested to know how much plastic is in our rivers and seas. Even taking account of my burgeoning collection, floating plastic makes up 40 per cent of the world’s ocean surfaces. That’s mind-blowing. Start gathering pretty plastic, folks – eco has to start somewhere. Don’t want it? Send it my way…there’s a bit of my floor I can still see…

Have a lovely day, lovely people.

Martha, The Colour File x

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