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According to The Ocean Cleanup non-profit, there are more than 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic floating around in the GPGP that weigh an estimated 80,000 tons, or, for those who prefer visuals, the weight of about 500 jumbo jets. Needless to say, unless something changes fast, the greatest testament to laissez-faire capitalism will not come from our glistening corporate skyscrapers blocking out the sunshine, but dead oceans overflowing with the refuse of a dead society that was too obsessed with moneymaking to pre-empt an impending disaster from happening.

And make no mistake this is a disaster waiting to happen. Even in the remote Galapagos Islands, which are situated 1,000 miles off the coast of South America in the Pacific Ocean, the once-pristine waters are being inundated on a daily basis with plastic debris from around the world. Locals spend mornings cleaning up the shoreline instead of collecting seashells. The exotic animals that the evolutionist Charles Darwin examined as the foundation for his famous work, ‘On the Origin of the Species’, are still there, but they are threatened by the increasing levels of plastic and other debris in the ecosystem.