When strong winds prevented filmmaker Jo Ruxton from sending a submarine to her chosen recording location off the coast of Marseille, she was naturally nervous. The crew had just one chance to document evidence of the build-up of rubbish on the seabed for her award-winning film A Plastic Ocean, but were forced to divert miles from where divers had reported a growing dump. She need not have worried. As the submersible reached a deep trench one mile from the surface, the team were confronted by a junk yard of human debris. Tyres, plastic water bottles, synthetic netting, unexploded bombs and even an old parachute emerged from the gloom. The world's oceans are drowning in human rubbish. Each year more than 300 million tons of plastic are produced globally, and 10 per cent will end up in the sea. It is estimated that there is now a 1: 2 ratio of plastic to plankton and, left unchecked, plastic will outweigh fish by 2050. Not only is the floating haze of scum unsightly, it is also swallowed by marine animals that can not digest it. Chemicals leach into the water, and it has been shown that even humans who eat seafood ingest 11,000 pieces of microplastic each year. Ruxton, who has previously worked as a producer on the BBC's Blue Planet, said: "People watch wildlife documentaries and think the oceans are still pristine but they are not. I've known film crews spend two hours clearing up beaches before they can take shots of turtles. " Yet there are signs that the tide may be starting to turn, and Britain could be leading the way. Warwick University spin-off company Recycling Technologies has just opened its first large plant in Swindon, Wiltshire, which operators say will process the plastic of the entire town. The goal is to roll out similar plants across the world and even install small versions on board dredgers, which can trawl the water, sucking up plastic waste and turning it into fuel to power the ships. Plastic is notoriously difficult to recycle - and only 12 per cent of household waste is reprocessed. The rest is either burnt or goes to landfill. The new system aims to turn dumped plastic into a valuable commodity. The US Navy and even some cruise ships already operate recycling systems, which take the waste of crew and passengers and heat it to temperatures of more than 5,000C to turn it back into a reusable form. Some countries, such as Germany, have legislation over plastic. Since 1991, companies that produce it have been responsible for dealing with their waste, and most supermarkets contain state-of-the art bottle banks that scan bar codes so packaging can be returned to manufacturers. A recent study estimated that nine in 10 of the world's seabirds have pieces of plastic in their guts. The southern hemisphere, around New Zealand and Australia, is particularly badly affected because of major polluters such as Indonesia and Thailand. Some albatross and shearwater have been found to have nearly 3,000 pieces of plastic - up to 8 kg - in their stomachs, the equivalent of a human eating 12 pizzas worth of food. It can't be digested, so the birds eventually die through lack of nutrition. There are even worries that what is visible could be just the tip of the iceberg. About 70 per cent of all ocean debris sinks down from the surface, leading experts to fear that huge rubbish dumps are accumulating unseen at the bottom of the ocean.
