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>> KAY: Hello there. I’m Kay Burley, reporting for Sky News. We have an important Sky News exclusive. We head now to Studio 1 at Sky Academy Skills Studios.

>> PENNY: Hello and welcome to Sky news.  My name is Penny.

>> MILLIE-MAE: And I am Millie-Mae.

>> PENNY: Today, we are going to be talking to you about one the biggest problems facing our world today. Plastic pollution in our oceans.

>> MILLIE-MAE: Every day in our houses we are using more plastic products or we buy items in plastic packaging. You can’t escape it. Most of our modern day items contain plastic, even clothing.

>> PENNY: But where does all this plastic go when we are done? We ship off some of it overseas to be recycled. Quite a bit of it ends up in the landfills and more than you can imagine ends up in plastic pollution, eventually making its way into our waterways.

>> MILLIE-MAE: The North Pacific garbage patch is located in the North Pacific gyre and is twice the size of Texas.

>> PENNY: But where does all the plastic go when we are done? We ship off some of it overseas to be recycled. Quite a bit of it ends up in landfills and more than you can imagine ends up in plastic pollution, eventually making its way into our waterways. Over the last ten years we have produced more plastic during the last century. Why is this a problem?

>> MILLIE-MAE: It takes 500 to 1000 years for plastic to degrade. 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed annually from plastic in our oceans. Did you know that…

>> PENNY: All over the world we are seeing the effects of this problematic plastic.

>> MILLIE-MAE: We are now going live to our reporter Isla in the city centre to find out more.

>> PENNY: Let’s stop polluting our oceans with plastic today.

>> BOTH: Thank you for watching.  Over to you.

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>> NILAH: Thank you Millie-Mae and Penny.  My name is Nilah Clark.

>> LUCY: And I’m Lucy Goodhead.

>> NILAH: We are now live in Asia to find out more about just what is happening.

>> LUCY: Many of you will look out at the beautiful green fields and gardens and not realise just what your plastic use is doing. Here though, it is very clear.

>> NILAH: 80% of all oceans are plastic. There are more than 150 million metric tonnes of plastic waste in the sea, with Asia waters being some of the worst affected. They are choked with plastic waste.

>> LUCY: 8 million tonnes of plastic are added to the sea every year, and it is estimated that it can take up to 600 years to disintegrate. Most of these plastics break up into smaller pieces called microplastics.

>> NILAH: Fish and other sea creatures can often mistake these microplastics for food and then ingest them. The microplastic then enters the human food chain as we eat the fish. This can cause many health problems for people.

>> LUCY: We will now speak to Holly Wiles who is a deep sea diver and has seen a lot of plastic in our oceans. Hi Holly, thanks for joining us.  Tell us about what’s happening.

>> HOLLY: There’s rarely a dive where I wouldn’t find some form of plastic fishing line, sweet wrappers or plastic bottles. It’s getting worse and worse.

>> NILAH: What do you do when you find plastic?

>> HOLLY: When we see any plastic when we are out on the boat, we do our best to stop and pick it up, just as anyone who cares for our oceans would hopefully do.

>> LUCY: We hear there’s a name you give the small bits of plastic on the beach.

>> HOLLY: Yes, we call it beach confetti and it’s small and hard to pick up.

>> LUCY: Where is your favourite place in the world to dive?

>> HOLLY: I really love it here, which is why it’s so sad to see it being destroyed. I also love diving in America and hope we can start to limit our plastic use and reverse the effects on the ocean before it’s too late.

>> NILAH: Thanks so much for speaking with us today.  That’s all we have time for.

>> LUCY: We now hand over to our Isla in Derby city centre.

>> LUCY and NILAH: Goodbye.

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>> ISLA: Thank you Lucy and Nilah.  Hello, my name is Isla, reporting live in Derby city centre. Today, the city are marching to save our marine creatures. I’ll be finding out what the public think about the plastic problem facing our oceans today and how we can make a change.

>> CHILD 1: Have you heard about 8.5 billion plastic straws are throw away and not recycled.

>> CHILD 2: The equivalent of one rubbish truck’s worth of plastic is dumped into the ocean every minute.

>> CHILD 3: By 2050, all the plastic in the ocean could weigh more than all the fish.

>> ISLA: With me, fresh from the march, is Heidi.  So tell me about yourself.

>> HEIDI: I’m a supermarket worker who believes that single-use plastic should be banned everywhere.

>> ISLA: What are you going to do to make a change?

>> HEIDI: I’m going to raise money to try and ban plastics from the store, and I’m also going to speak to my manager about have bamboo toothbrushes, metal straws and any alternatives to plastic. In my job, I try to encourage my customers to invest in plastic bags for life when shopping.

>> ISLA: Thank you so much for your time.

>> HEIDI: Thank you for having me.

>> ISLA: With me, I have Yasmin.  Tell us about yourself and why you are here.

>> YASMIN: I’m a student who came across the dangers that plastic is doing to our oceans after watching the documentary made by David Attenborough.

>> ISLA: What changes have you made from that?

>> YASMIN: I have been doing research and I am ready to put it forward to my school. I have also been trying to persuade my parents to avoid using single use plastic in our home. In my daily life, I have made it a priority to use eco-friendly and sustainable products or items. We all need to make a difference.

>> ISLA: Thank you for speaking to me. Excellent.  Well there you have it. The people here in Derby are ready to make a change. That’s all from me, now let’s head over to Caleb.

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>> CALEB: Thank you Isla.  Good afternoon, my name is Caleb and in today’s report, we have been looking into the impact single use plastic is having on our environment and sea life. As it stands, in the next 30 years, plastic will overweight fish in our oceans. In today’s report we ask, can this be reversed?

>> CHILD 4: Plastic bottles are the third worst plastic polluter of the ocean and more than 13 billion single-use plastic bottles are sold in Britain each year.

>> CHILD 5: Plastic has been an essential part of our lives for the last 50 years. However, this is now more harm than good and we need to recycle, reuse and refuse plastic.

>> CALEB: I am here with Izzy who researches plastic and Mr Oliver who is a marine biologist. Thank you both for coming onto today’s show.

>> MR OLIVER: No problem.  I’m happy to be here.

>> IZZY: So am I.

>> CALEB: So what is your opinion on the manufacture of plastic?

>> MR OLIVER: I think that it is just useless.  You only use these things once and then throw them away.  Why can’t big supermarkets just stop plastic all together and people would be forced to bring their own?

>> IZZY: I totally agree Mr Oliver. This is something that is having a huge effect on our world and it needs to stop now.

>> CALEB: What can people do at home to put a stop to this?

>> MR OLIVER: People need to use less single-use plastics.  Many sea birds mistake this plastic for food and it is killing the animals, and lots of people are unaware of this.

>> IZZY: Spread the word and tell people what is going on.

>> CALEB: Finally, how can people find out more?

>> IZZY: Watch more documentaries.  The information is there. Even better, head over to the Sky Ocean website and find out.

>> MR OLIVER: If you see plastic which isn’t yours, pick it up because it still has an effect.

>> CALEB: Thank you both for your time. Please head over to the Sky website to find out more. That’s all from me.  Goodbye.

 >> KAY: Thanks to the team at Sky Academy Skills Studios. That’s the end of our special report. I’m Kay Burley, thank you for watching.

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