COLUMNISTS
REUSING PLASTIC IS THE KEY TO REDUCING OUR WASTE… AND NATURE IS SHOWING US HOW
COMMENT
When it comes to plastic, recycling isn’t working. So, it’s time for us to completely rethink what we do with our rubbish
VICTORIA GILL
SHAWN MILLER
Victoria is BBC News’s award-winning science correspondent. Her reporting can be found on television, radio and online.
I was recently stopped in my tracks by what I’d describe as a ‘cutely apocalyptic’ photograph. It’s the one you see on the left, of a small, beady-eyed hermit crab tucked neatly into a bright red object.
This ‘shell’ provides the little crustacean with a perfectly proportioned, easily manoeuvrable piece of armour. Only it’s not a shell in the conventional sense, it’s a discarded plastic bottle top.
The image is a moving depiction of the extent of the global issue of plastic pollution. Ordinarily, hermit crabs scavenge items from the seabed to use for a shelter. It’s due to this behaviour of finding a home and carrying it around on their backs that they earned their name. But now, many of them are picking up bits of rubbish rather than the beautiful snail shells they normally nestle into.