Voices is the Dorset Echo's weekly youth page, written for young people by young people

Plastic pollution is a life-threatening situation; we must solve how we can make an end to it.

Every year, eight million metric tonnes of plastic is thrown or dumped into the ocean. That’s a lot of plastic.

If you didn’t know, only six per cent of the plastic that is put in the recycling is actually recycled.

Hundreds and thousands of people drop litter on the way home, and it takes years to decompose.

At our school we use these things called eco-bricks. Eco-bricks are plastic bottles that weigh more than 500g with plastic in them. Some people make chairs or seats out of them.

The biggest source of pollution in the ocean is directly from land based sources, such as oil, dirt, septic tanks, farms, ranches and motor vehicles, among other larger sources.

People go to the shops and buy plastic-wrapped items every day. The plastic wrapping usually just gets thrown in the bin and more local shops are starting to sell more open and fresh fruit and vegetables (you weigh them and then pay for the weight).

This is using less plastic and making a good start on cleaning up our environment.

Turtles sometimes mistake plastic bags for jelly fish and eat them.

Oil is a bad because it is another source destroying, polluting and killing our oceans.

It makes it hard for an animal to survive in the water. It has toxic chemicals that can even poison the animals if they swallow it. It can make roads dangerous too, and unsafe for drivers.

By Katelyn Irvin and Chloe Masters

St Georges Primary School