Penn said that the team would consist of “scientists, filmmakers, journalists, artists [and] educators from all over the world”, split into a film and communications team, a science team and a solutions team.

“It’s really important that we keep on getting this ongoing scientific data to keep adding to those datasets, because at the moment there is still so little we know about the impact this plastic is having on our ocean,” she told Sky Ocean Rescue.

The solutions team, she said, will be “going out there to see the problem first-hand, so that then we can work out what it is that we really need to do to solve this problem back here on land”.

It is estimated that around 12.7 million tonnes of plastic ends up in the world’s oceans every year, or the equivalent of a truck load of rubbish a minute. The average oyster now contains 8.3 pieces of plastic – and by 2050, the amount of plastic in the world’s oceans could weigh more than the entire fish population.

In January this year, Theresa May unveiled a 25-year environment plan that focused particularly on cutting plastic pollution. However, Greenpeace later discovered that the UK government has refused to agree to firm recycling targets proposed by the EU.

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This all-woman crew is sailing the Pacific to fight plastic pollution