David Attenborough on the scourge of the oceans: 'I remember being told plastic doesn't decay, it's wonderful'

His sequel to The Blue Planet will focus not only on the marvels of sea life but also the threats to it. The naturalist explains why plastic pollution, climate change and overpopulation are problems too urgent to be left to ecologistsDavid Attenborough vividly remembers, nearly 80 years on, his first encounter with one of the worst scourges of the planet. He was a schoolboy. "I remember my headmaster, who was also my science master, saying: 'Boys, we've entered a new era! We've entered, we'll be proud to say, the plastic era. And what is so wonderful about this is we've used all our scientific ingenuity to make sure that it's virtually indestructible. It doesn't decay, you know, it's wonderful.'"Attenborough lets the last word hang in the air, eyebrows and hands raised. Then the hands fall. "Now we dump thousands of tonnes of it, every year, into the sea, and it has catastrophic effects." Continue reading...