Expedition collects six tonnes of waste from the most densely-polluted beach in the world

James Beard of Valpak, which sponsored an Explorers Club Flag Expedition, believes that prevention is the only viable option to halt the tide of marine plastic litter.

The expedition targeted Henderson Island, an uninhabited World Heritage site in the remote Pitcairn islands and bagged six tonnes of waste from the most densely-polluted beach in the world.

The primary purpose of the expedition was to generate data that could be used by the scientific community to investigate the scale and impact of marine plastics.

A team of scientists, artists, journalists, diplomats, divers and expert guides returned to the island to collect, log and remove the plastic.

While the clean-up team collected everything from bottle tops to glass floats from 1940s Japan, the scientists collected blood samples from indigenous birds and took images of the seabed to map biodiversity.

Beard said: “Up to two-thirds of plastic lie beneath the surface, and larger pieces are continuously breaking up into ever-smaller fragments. Humanity could spend several lifetimes trying to clean up such problems so, instead, our efforts must turn to preventing plastic from entering the waterways in the first place – a challenge made difficult in a world where a third of the population has no access to effective waste management.”

“Clean-ups can raise awareness and provide useful data, but they are not the solution. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle, and it will take a collective change in how humanity views plastic to get it back in again.”