Foreign aid money to rid the world of plastic with £6million cash boost

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Millions more in foreign aid cash will be used to tackle plastic pollution, Penny Mordaunt will announce today.

The International Development Secretary will unveil a doubling of the amount for plastic recycling schemes in poorer countries.

The £6million cash injection from the controversial foreign aid budget is designed to boost plastic recycling and reduce the amount of waste dumped.

Miss Mordaunt will invite bids from scientists and environmentalists for ways to clear the huge amount of existing plastic waste from rivers and oceans, where it is dangerous to wildlife.

The announcement is a further boost for the Daily Mail’s campaign to tackle the scourge of plastic pollution around the world. An estimated 90 per cent of plastic waste in the sea comes from just ten rivers in Africa and Asia.

And it comes as an astonishing 210,237 volunteers have pledged to join in with the Great British Spring Clean, which is being backed by the Daily Mail. The Keep Britain Tidy campaign is likely to be this year’s largest environmental event.

Miss Mordaunt will make her announcement alongside Sir David Attenborough at Parliament today. She will warn that plastic pollution is ‘one of the biggest threats to our oceans’ and argue everyone has a duty to the planet, future generations and the world’s poorest to sort out the issue of plastic waste.

She will say: ‘The United Nations estimates that there will be more plastic in the sea than fish by 2050, unless we act to reduce our use and improve how waste is managed, particularly in poorer countries.