With plastic pollution now a worldwide concern, two zoos in Norfolk and Suffolk are launching a new initiative to protect our oceans.

Banham Zoo and Africa Alive! are removing all single-use plastic drink bottles from their shelves as part of a campaign to help protect the world's oceans from plastic pollution.

Both zoos are also removing all plastic straws, drinking cups and other single-use plastic items from their food outlets at Banham, near Thetford, and Kessingland, near Lowestoft.

Martin Dupée, director of operations at the Zoological Society of East Anglia, a charitable trust which owns the zoos, said: 'By removing single-use plastic bottles, we're not only reducing our own impact on the oceans, but opening the eyes of manufacturers to the problem and showing them how easy it can be to adopt more sustainable alternatives.'

In 2016, it is estimated plastic bottles were sold at a rate of 15,179 per second around the world. Fewer than half were collected for recycling, and only 7pc of those were turned into new bottles.