It's difficult to pinpoint the size of Northern Ireland’s plastic problem because of the way waste statistics are correlated.
We do know from official reports that four million single use plastic cups and food containers are thrown away each week “the majority of which will end up in landfill or in our seas”.
But the figures, from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, are just the tip of a plastic iceberg that grew even bigger during the pandemic.
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It's clear almost 80% of the 3 million items found on our beaches is plastic and we’ve all seen stories about wildlife being injured or killed as a result of what people carelessly throw away.
Before Covid hit, Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful research estimated that at any one time in 2019-2020 there were 28 tonnes - or 1.3 million bits - of litter on our streets with just seven companies having manufactured half of it.
According to the latest local authority waste management statistics, our 11 councils collected 1,031m tonnes of rubbish in 2020-21, exactly half of which was recycled.
Almost 23% went to landfill - down from 24% the previous year - and almost a quarter was burned to create energy.
A more recent report on council recycling figures across Northern Ireland that we've seen suggests just over 21,000 tonnes of the plastics we put in our bins is actually recycled.
So while we have come a long way in the past 20 years as Bryson Recycling boss Eric Randall says - we still have some way to go to meet our 65% recycling target by 2035.
The plastic bag levy has achieved some impressive results with a reduction of over 80% in the number of plastic bags we used in 2020-21 compared with 300,000,000 estimated in 2012.
Coronavirus may have had an impact on the 56,171,840 dispensed last year considering the drop from 80,480,957 the previous year.
But 56 million plastic bags is still a big number and that coupled with delayed decisions on a single use plastic ban could be behind a call for governments across the UK to finally “hold packaging producers accountable for litter costs... in line with the polluter pays principle”.
Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful CEO, Ian Humphreys, joined his colleagues in England, Scotland and Wales in writing to the UK’s four environment ministers about the £384m a year problem.
The letter, which was co-signed by a range of councils, environment and wildlife charities, urges them to “shift the financial burden of litter back to those who are responsible for putting harmful and pervasive items on to the market”.
They argue the move will be “an incentive to reduce the amount of packaging that is produced and to improve design so that it is not thrown away after just a single use”.
Chris Gourley, Waste and Pollution Solutions Strategic Lead at Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful, told us: “Not all plastic is bad - it certainly has its uses but it should never been seen as a disposable commodity or product.
“Consumer choice out there is pretty poor when it comes to alternatives so we really want to promote suitable, sustainable alternatives.
“Plastic is one part of the environmental climate emergency - it’s all interlinked.
“As far as the problem goes, one of the main industries we should be looking at is the food and beverage industry.
“That’s litter related as well as producer related.”
The charity’s ‘Litter Composition Producers Report 2019-2020’ suggested just seven producers are responsible for manufacturing over half of all of the branded litter dumped on NI’s streets and put in public bins, with the top 25 creating 77% of it.
It followed an examination of 10,626 pieces of waste from January 21 to March 4, 2019.
Firms listed in the top 25 are primarily food and beverage producers, including those making fast foods, alcoholic beverages, confectionery and snacks.
Topping the list were drinks makers Coca-Cola, Boost Drink and Lucozade Ribena Suntory.
Tobacco companies were also prominent with the charity saying that including cigarette butts in the producer count would significantly change the ranking of both JTI UK and Imperial Brands PLC.
The report estimated the cost of NI’s litter problem to be around £20 million a year.
Mr Gourley added: “We would like to produce another report to see what difference has been made since then but certainly just looking on the ground and talking to volunteers, we don’t expect there will be much of a change.
“It seems to be as bad as ever. We are still picking up tens of bags of plastic waste and litter from these producers on a regular basis.
“The problem is extensive and it’s very ugly.”
Chris says business has to be part of the solution and he hopes they can come up with better alternatives to the single use plastics used so widely today.
“There seems to be a delay on the extended producer responsibility and we would like to see that come into effect without delay,” he added.
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