Greenpeace has launched a petition calling for New Zealand to ban plastic bottles.
The environmental advocacy group says after the Government banned plastic bags, cutting the use of plastic bottles was the "next logical step if we are serious about protecting our wildlife and ourselves from the scourge of single-use plastic".
It proposes banning "all ready-to-drink, single-use plastic beverage containers in the volume range of 0.1 litres to 3 litres", such as mineral water, soft drink, sport drink, juice and milk bottles.
The move would help reduce the amount of plastic sent to waste each year. According to National Geographic, since the mass production of plastic began about 60 years ago, roughly 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic has been created with 6.3 billion metric tons becoming waste. Of that, only nine percent has been recycled, 79 percent has accumulated in landfills or as litter, and 12 percent is incinerated.
Plastic can take hundreds of years to degrade and often breaks down into micro-plastics which are consumed by fish we eat.
"Single use plastic is choking our wildlife, ninety per cent of NZ seabirds have eaten plastic and birds like Toroa (Royal Albatross) are plucking it out of the ocean and feeding it to their young," campaigner Holly Dove said in a statement.
"New Zealanders love the coastlines; trips to the beach, our sea life, and kai moana. It's part of our way of life, and plastic pollution threatens that."
Greenpeace doesn't believe we "can recycle our way out of our tidal wave of plastic waste".
"We can be world leaders on this," Dove said.
Other countries - such as Rwanda and Greece - have begun phasing out all single-use plastics, including bottles. However, this is happening over a period of years. For example, industrial manufacturers in Rwanda have about two years to change their processes, while Greece is looking to stop single-use plastics by July next year.
Speaking to The AM Show on Thursday, Greenpeace plastic campaign Phil Vine said businesses need to get on board, but the Government also has a role.
"As we have seen with the plastic bag ban, it needs the impetus of the Government to say 'okay we are drawing a line. We are going to stop this'. You can't do it overnight, but we can say six months, a year, we are not going to have these anymore. Do what you need to do."
Vine said it was difficult to put down a "hard and fast" date for this to happen.
"Without a deadline, without an idea that the manufacturers have in their heads that is going to be banned, it won't happen. Otherwise it would have happened in the last 10, 15 years wouldn't it."
He said businesses would like recycling to continue, but that "isn't having an effect".
"It is cheaper, plastic is cheaper for them, it is lighter, it is better for them. They were the ones who made the decision originally to swap from glass to plastic. For their bottom line, now we are paying the price."
Vine called recycling "wishcycling".
"It's aspirational. We like to think that when we put our plastic into the bin and wheel it down there, we get that nice, warm feeling and think 'ah this is going to be made into other bottles, that's fantastic'. That's not what happens. We don't have bottle to bottle recycling in New Zealand."
He said many recyclables get made into plastic traffic bollards.
Last year, the Government announced work had begun on the development of a container return scheme.
"A container return scheme would change the way New Zealanders see beverage containers. They would again become something of value, and we would see increased recycling and new opportunities for refilling. When consumers recycle their drink bottles, they would get a deposit back, which incentivises higher recycling rates," Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage said in September.
A proposal is to be presented to the Government by August.
