As Jennifer Lavers of the University of Tasmania began her talk at Berlin’s Falling Walls conference in November, operatives from the city’s garbage contractor dumped a hundred 60-litre sacks of plastic waste around the stage.

Speaking from behind the barrier of trash, the Australian marine ecologist told the audience: “This rubbish is equivalent to just two days of consumption by the [750] individuals in this auditorium.” Then she showed shocking photos she had taken on uninhabited Henderson Island in the south Pacific, one of the most remote places on earth.

Beaches that were covered with pristine sand in the 1990s are today littered with plastic debris, washed up from countries around the Pacific Rim and beyond — an estimated 37 million pieces, weighing 18 tonnes.