Back in 2016, an artist in the UK called Daniel Webb decided to conduct an experiment after he'd been seeing plastic all over his local beaches and he wasn't offered plastic recycling at his new flat. He decided to collect his plastic packaging in his spare room for the next year to see how much he actually used.
It turns out to be a hell of a lot. By early 2018, Daniel Webb accumulated 22 bin bags of plastic that he later spent 4 days, with 20 volunteers spreading out on the floor of a 2,000-capacity music venue. Somewhat alarmingly, Webb didn't drink bottled water so his bounty contained very few plastic bottles that would have fattened up the haul considerably. He said at the time:
"LOOKING OUT OVER THAT SEA OF PLASTIC WAS A SHOCKING AND VISCERAL MOMENT FOR ME. FOR THE FIRST TIME, I FELT FULLY CONNECTED TO THE WIDER PLASTIC CRISIS AND TERRIFIED OF ITS IMPACT."
At the time, Webb took his plastic to Dreamworld at Margate and erected a huge 13 metres x 4 metres billboard installation to show local families and visitors. The experience changed Webb's life as he began to not only understand the extent of plastic waste, but also the broken recycling system.
Webb wanted to get as many members of the public as possible to engage directly with the amount of plastic they were throwing away and devised The Everyday Plastic Survey. The survey led to a project which led to a partnership with Greenpeace andthe UK’s biggest nationwide investigation into household plastic waste: The Big Plastic Count. Together they recruited nearly 250,000 to participate in the plastic count.
Avoid plastic, especially soft plastic. Always recycle drink bottles and make sure any return and earn bottles go to either the collection points or someone who collects them.
While Webb and Greenpeace have effectively exposed the UK's incapability to manage their own plastic waste, the issue is universal. On average, each household threw away 66 pieces of plastic packaging in one week, which amounts to an estimated 3,432 pieces a year. The most commonly counted items were fruit and vegetable packaging, closely followed by snack bags, packets and wrappers.