Getting rid of plastic is completely impossible, but it is not necessary either. What we need to do is learn to stop using low-quality plastics, paint them with good quality plastic.

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Last week, scientists revealed an increasing amount of microclimate in the Arctic sea ice sheet, as well as in a two-kilometer sediment under the Great Ocean Bight.

Green Australia Senator Peter Wilson said the current Australian recycling crisis shows why plastics should be eliminated from everyday life.

But can the community function without plastic? And is there a plastic worth keeping?

Professor Anthony Ryan, a professor of physical chemistry at Sheffield University, said it was not the plastic that was the problem, but how people choose to tackle plastic.

"Plastic is not bad, what people do with plastic is bad," he said.

"The reason we are throwing plastic from the Final Disposal and entering the ocean is because there is collusion between packaging manufacturers and consumers to use disposable plastics," he said.

Professor Ryan said before consumers were free from the reliance on shopping convenience and began rejecting disposable plastics, plastic providers would continue to produce it.

"That's the convenience with the cheapest price," he said.

He said it was not the consumers or producers who had to pay the cost of collecting and recycling waste. Instead, it is society who has to bear that cost.

"The tragedy is that we throw the garbage into someone else's yard," he said.

How to get rid of poor quality plastic?

Professor Ryan reiterated the need for rules to stop using low-quality plastics, which are disposable plastics.

Manufacturers of plastics and governments around the world, he said, have to decide which plastic is best used for packaging materials.

There are currently no rules at all, so manufacturers can use whatever packaging material they want.

"We often find multilayer films, so many different plastics in a single film, it is impossible to separate and pre-process," he said.

"They provide all kinds of thick film benefits from one plastic that you can use over and over again," he explained.

"I suggest that we re-think the future and come back to refill the package," he said.

"So refill drink bottles, buy packaged goods, use repetitive packaging and choose the discomfort to be more environmentally friendly."

He said plastics should not end up in landfills and emphasize reusing certain products, such as bottles.

"In Germany, they have a deposit scheme where plastic bottles are washed and refilled," he said.

"When I was a kid, people washed and refilled the jar, if I wanted a packet of crisps, I would bring the empty bottle to the store and collect the deposit".

"For example if we give plastic bottles of economic value, then they will be collected, refilled and reused."

Since plastics are long molecules, they are not mixed, so nothing can be done with waste from the waste bin without much labor to separate different types of plastic.

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The solution offered by Professor Ryan is to have standard polyethylene, PET, and nylon which can be used to make reusable bottles and boxes.

"So there will be no leakage to the environment, because the packaging stuff will have an intrinsic value despite the deposit scheme," he said.

Life without plastic is impossible

Professor Ryan says to imagine what kind of life would be without plastic, we just have to remove every item and clothing made of polymer plastic.

"Any clothes we wear will be lost," he said. "Even if made of cotton, it is made of polymer and the polymer is called cellulose."

"And if viewed more deeply, the concern about the existence of micro-plastic everywhere, they easily become a micro-plastic natural like cellulose fiber."

He said a lot of confusion about toxic plastics. "If it lasts forever and is inactive, it can not be poisoned at the same time," he said.

Professor Ryan says if a person consumes small plastic pieces, then the gut will just do his job and clean up the trash.

"You will not end up with a pile of microbeads wandering around in the stomach," he says. "Everything will be cleaned like the others."