Damning reports have suggested the amount of plastic in the world’s oceans will outweigh fish by 2050. Not only is plastic leaking into seas at a startling rate – a truckload per minute, according to World Economic Forum – but once it’s in there, fish mistake it for food.

The situation has left companies across Europe scrambling to produce alternatives to our growing problem with plastics. One, Novamont, is in the testing phase of its latest bioplastic product, which is designed to biodegrade in a marine environment. Divers have taken to depths below the surface, finding that the product has started to degrade within a month of arrival underwater, and has almost completely disintegrated after a year.