Prince Charles this morning was the keynote speaker at the fourth annual Our Oceans conference which is discussing ways to clean up and protect the oceans.
The conference is being hosted in Malta and was also addressed by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, EU foreign affairs high commissioner Federica Mogherini and the EU's Fisheries Commissioner, Karmenu Vella, among others.
Our Oceans 2017 will address the themes of marine protected areas, sustainable fisheries, marine pollution, and climate change
More than 40 ministers and other leaders from more than 100 countries are attending the meeting and are expected to announce pledges. to protect the sea
Previous conferences have seen a wide range of commitments agreed by nations and billions of pounds pledged.
In his address the Prince of Wales urged consumers to match the commitment made by some of the world's biggest brands to stop the devastating impact plastics are having on our oceans.
Prince Charles highlighted how the waste material is increasingly found in fish caught for the dinner table - a worsening issue researchers have claimed will lead to the sea containing more plastics than fish, by weight, by 2050.
"The growing threat to the world's marine ecology has reached a critical point where plastics are now on the menu", he told the conference.
"The irreversible damage to the Great Barrier Reef is a "serious wake-up call" for nations, he said, and what is needed is a circular economy which allows plastics to be recovered, recycled and reused instead of created, used and then thrown away.
"As many of you know so well, the eight million tonnes of plastic that enter the sea every year - through our own doing I might add - is now almost ubiquitous.
"For all the plastic that we have produced since the 1950s that has ended up in the ocean is still with us in one form or another, so that wherever you swim there are particles of plastic near you and we are very close to reaching the point when whatever wild-caught fish you eat will contain plastic.
"Plastic is indeed now on the menu."
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has published a report with the World Economic Forum which claims that, by 2050, the oceans are expected to contain more plastics than fish, by weight.
And earlier in the year Henderson Island, a tiny uninhabited coral atoll in the eastern South Pacific, made headlines after nearly 18 tonnes of plastic washed up on the remote outcrop.