Neil: I'm Neil.
Beth: And I'm Beth.
'Plastic is fantastic!'
This phrase was used a lot in the 1950s
when mass-produced plastic items started to become part of our everyday lives.
The following decades saw a revolution
as plastic became the most commonly used material in modern life,
found in everything from cars to furniture to packaging.
Take a quick look around
and you'll soon see how many everyday items contain plastic.
Neil: But now our love of plastic is being questioned,
mostly thanks to climate change and pollution caused by single-use plastics –
plastic products which are designed to be used just once before being thrown away.
11 million tonnes of plastic waste are dumped into our oceans every year.
It's believed that single-use plastics make up 40% of all plastic pollution globally.
Beth: What's more, it's not just land and water being polluted –
tiny plastic pieces known as microbeads have even been found inside the human body,
and can be passed from mother to child through breast milk.
And because plastic comes from fossil fuels,
the process of making it creates problems at every stage,