The EU has pledged to make all plastic recyclable or reusable by 2030, in a bid to reduce plastic usage.
On Tuesday, Brussels announced new plans to invest €350 million (£310 million) in research to modernise plastics production.
Vice-president of the commission, Frans Timmermans, told newspapers that the priority is to clamp down on “single-use plastics that take five seconds to produce, you use it for five minutes and it takes 500 years to break down again”.
“If we don’t do anything about this, 50 years down the road we will have more plastic than fish in the oceans … we have all the seen the images, whether you watch [the BBC’s] Blue Planet, whether you watch the beaches in Asian countries after storms.
“If children knew what the effects are of using single-use plastic straws for drinking sodas, or whatever, they might reconsider and use paper straws or no straws at all.
“We are going to choke on plastic if we don’t do anything about this. How many millions of straws do we use every day across Europe? I would have people not use plastic straws any more. It only took me once to explain to my children. And now … they go looking for paper straws, or don’t use straws at all. It is an issue of mentality.”
The EU has various strategies it plans to implement including investing in new research, taxing damaging behaviour and modernising production of plastic behaviours.
Details of plans were missing from strategy documents but one strategy given was to promote tap water on Europe’s streets in order to reduce demand for bottled water.
“The EU strategy is far from perfect, but it’s better than what the UK government is offering,” said Catherine Bearder, a Liberal Democrat member of the environment committee.
“Theresa May would have you think she is the fairy godmother of plastics – but she isn’t. I will be long dead before the end of Mrs May’s strategy. I hope the oceans won’t be too.”