The threat of plastics to the marine environment has
been ignored for a long time, and its seriousness has
been only recently recognised (Stefatos et al., 1999).
Fergusson (1974) for instance, then a member of the
Council of the British Plastics Federation and a Fellow
of the Plastics Institute, stated that ‘‘plastics litter is a
very small proportion of all litter and causes no harm to
the environment except as an eyesore’’.