Abstract
It has long been recognised that plastic objects released into the environment have harmful impacts on wildlife. Public realisation that plastic pollution is a major global environmental problem is more recent and has been sudden, sparked by publication of an analysis of the flows of polluting plastics into the environment and the accumulated stocks of polluting waste, particularly in the oceans.1 This contribution aims first to provide an introduction to the history and uses of plastics in the economy and, secondly, to set out the routes by which plastics leak from the economy into the environment in order to inform development of possible strategies to alleviate the problem of plastic pollution.