Turning The Tide | Plastic on the Ganges

[Music] You take this incredible material that lasts for hundreds of years. We use it for a few seconds, a few minutes, and then we throw it away.

[Music] [Music] I'm Heather Coldway. I'm a National Geographic fellow, and I'm the science co-lead for the Sea to Source expedition. Our job with the National Geographic Sea to Source team is to get in there to really understand how plastic is getting from land into the water and where we can switch that off. The focus of our attention is on the forty percent of plastic produced every year that's single-use plastic.

What we're finding, because it lasts so long, is it's accumulating in the system. As it accumulates, it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, where it's now being consumed by the smallest plankton to the biggest whale. We know that there is a huge amount of ocean plastic that can be accounted for coming from some of the major rivers in the world. How do we go about stopping that flow of plastic? Where are the solutions to stop plastic entering the ocean and harming people and wildlife in the process?

[Music] Oh [Music] There wasn't any plastic before. Now, it has been part of our life for the last 10 to 15 years. When plastic stops being available in the market, then we will stop using it.

[Music] [Music] Foreign. If the public uses it less and the government decreases the amount of plastic, then hopefully we can achieve something. We know a lot of plastic is what we call pointless plastic, and that's particularly single-use plastic. A lot of the items that we use that for really are things that we can do without or use an alternative, more sustainable material instead.

The data we're collecting is really a tool to help those solutions along the way and make them happen quicker or faster. It's something we can fix, and it's something everybody can do every single day.

[Music] There is no single solution to the plastic pollution crisis. Our research shows we need action from all sectors of the community: government, business, and civil society to truly tackle plastic pollution. Everyone needs to commit to making a difference, from changing our own behavior to changing systems. Together we can make a difference.

[Music] You