The nature documentary Blue Planet II, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, was considered to be so influential in raising awareness of the environmental damage caused by plastics that experts still refer to the “Blue Planet effect” more than four years after it first aired. Heartbreaking images of sea turtles caught up in discarded fishing gear were the last (plastic) straw and the public abruptly fell out of love with single-use plastics.
In their place came the circular economy, in which products are reused and, at their end of life, recycled, removing waste from the system. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a non-profit set up to promote the idea, estimates that in Europe, India, and China it could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to
