Since when did it become normal for all of us to be eating plastic - writes Dave Hutton

I’m sure many of us have seen disturbing television images of whales found dead with kilos of plastic in their stomachs, or of sea birds regurgitating semi-digested food into their young which contains enough plastic pieces to kill them.

It’s been more than 20 years since scientists in Scotland investigating dead fulmars found a single bird without plastic inside it.

The sad truth is that plastic has been entering our own food chain, but for how long, no one is certain.

After Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used to make hard plastics and to line the inside of tins, was found in mothers’ breast milk and babies’ urine in 2012, some bans, mainly on feeding and drinking bottles, were introduced, but its use is still widespread and the harmful effects of alternatives such as BPS are starting to be documented.

In 2017, a study found that 93 per cent of bottled water and 83 per cent of tap water contained micro plastics.

Famously, in the 1967 film, The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman’s character, receives some famous careers advice from an older mentor: ‘Just one word: plastics. There’s a great future in plastics.’

Since then, plastic products have entered every aspect of our lives, from the clothes we wear, to the furniture we sit on, to the life-saving uses in medicine, to containers we store food and drinks in, to the tyres on our cars, to the paint on our walls and roads, to the toys our children play with, and to nearly anything you buy that can be wrapped.

It is, after all, such a versatile, useful and dare I say it, profitable, product. It is estimated that more than 8 billion tonnes have been produced.

Despite all the concerns about plastic, production is set to double from an extremely high level by 2050. Very little, about 9 per cent, of it is recycled.

Unfortunately, plastics never disappear – they just get smaller and smaller. Pieces that are less than five millimetres in length, are called microplastics.

There are even smaller pieces that enter the water chain every time we wash our clothes.

Car tyres need replacing because they shed tiny plastic particles every time we drive. These particles are airborne and will fall into the sea and water courses – we also breathe them in.

It is estimated that on average, every one of us is eating the equivalent of a Lego brick of plastic every month.

We know from analysis of plastics in the environment that they attract harmful bacteria (such as E-coli) and other contaminants.

Now it has to be said that although the harmful effects of ingestion of the chemical, BPA, were well documented, the effects of human consumption of micro-plastics are not yet known.

It is a relatively recent phenomenon and long-term effects may not reveal themselves for some time, if at all. Judging by the record of governments to take the issue seriously, however, you may be forgiven for thinking that humans eating plastic is not just normal, but acceptable.

As individuals it is now impossible to totally avoid ingesting microplastics, but we can take steps to ensure that we minimise our use of single-use plastic products.

If the majority of people actively take steps to avoid these products, it can send a strong message both to governments and to industry that radical changes are needed to reduce their production.