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I was in the supermarket checkout queue the other day. There were six checkouts. When I looked around, I was the only one who had brought reusable grocery bags, and the rest of the customers bought new shopping bags for their groceries. At that time, I wished I could tell them not to use new plastic bags because plastic pollution is a huge worldwide problem.

Plastic pollution is harming our marine life and Mother Earth. Just take a look at some of the shocking facts and stats below:

  • Plastic bags dominate 14.1% of ocean garbage, followed by plastic bottles 11.9% and food containers 9.4%. (2021)
  • Globally, we get through a staggering 1 million plastic bottles every minute, most of which end in landfills.
  • By 2050, there’ll be more plastic than fish in the sea.

How about recycling plastic? Unfortunately, how we recycle plastic escalates more unsolved problems because of the sheer volume of plastic we produce and consume daily! Our addiction to plastic is poisoning us and future generations. Plastic waste also causes serious climate change because nearly 99% of plastic is derived from fossil fuels.

So, we’ve got to think hard about our addiction to plastic and how we can stop that. I understand it is hard to change our behaviour if we aren’t fully aware of the seriousness of plastic pollution. However, awareness is just one side of the coin. We also need the belief that you and I together can make profound impacts and lead to great things. This all starts with small steps from individual actions, e.g. not using single-use plastic or buying plastic bags. Remember: we, human beings, are the cause but can be part of the solution if we’re doing the right thing!

Here, I hope the 21 plastic pollution quotes below will raise our awareness, radically change our relationship with plastic and ultimately, we and future generations can all live in a plastic-free world. Less plastic, more living!

Quotes about saying no to plastic use

turtle and plastic in the sea
  • For the sake of the planet, less plastic, please. – Sir David Attenborough
  • Giving up plastic water bottles is really, really easy. You just replace it with a reusable water bottle. – Moby, musician
  • Plastic will be the main ingredient of all our grandchildren’s recipes. – Anthony T. Hincks
  • A plastic-pollution-free world is not a choice but a commitment to life – a commitment to the next generation. – Amit Ray
  • We humans have become dependent on plastic for a variety of uses, from packaging to products. Reducing our use of plastic bags is an easy place to start getting our addiction under control. – David Suzuki
  • If we say no to plastic bags, it will save millions of people down the line. – Amit Ray
  • I hate plastic bottles. Just think about it before you buy one. We pay more for a gallon of water than we do for a gallon of gas. – Philippe Cousteau

Quotes about plastic pollution and the marine environment

Quotes about plastic pollution
  • Industrial pollution and discarding plastic waste must be tackled for the sake of all life in the ocean. – Sir David Attenborough
  • We are being choked to death by the amount of plastic that we throw away. It’s killing our oceans. It’s entering into our bodies in the fish we eat.” – Kevin Bacon
  • Not only are plastics polluting our oceans and waterways and killing marine life – it’s in all of us, and we can’t escape consuming plastics.” – Marco Lambertini

Quotes about single-use plastic

Quotes about plastic pollution
  • It’s only one straw, said 8 billion people. – Unknown
  • Plastic pollution is one of the most visible signs of unsustainable consumption and production. – Inger Andersen
  • Of all the waste we generate, plastic bags are perhaps the greatest symbol of our throwaway society. They are used, then forgotten, and they leave a terrible legacy”. – Zac Goldsmith
  • It cannot be right to manufacture billions of objects that are used for a matter of minutes and then are with us for centuries”. – Roz Savage
Quotes about plastic pollution

Quotes about plastic waste

  • Plastic disposal not only pollutes the land but the water and the air, the three primary elements for any living being on the earth. – Sir P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar
  • Plastic pollution is a global issue: killing wildlife, contaminating our oceans and waters, and lasting far longer than it is used.” – Leonardo DiCaprio
  • Only we humans make trash that nature can’t digest. – Charles Moore
  • Plastic waste is now found in the most remote areas of the planet. It kills marine life and is doing major harm to communities that depend on fishing and tourism. – António Guterres
  • There is no such thing as ‘away’. When we throw anything away, it must go somewhere. – Annie Leonard
  • Pollution from oil and gas development, toxic runoff, and miles and miles of plastic trash foul the waters and threaten marine life. – Frances Beinecke
Quotes about plastic pollution