Trash Isles: The newest country in the world is looking for citizens

Britain's imminent withdrawal from the European Union has led many of her citizens to start hunting for second passports. For those who don't have an Irish grandmother up their sleeve, there is an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean that could be just the ticket.

The Trash Isles consists of all the discarded plastic littering the Pacific – in total, they are about the about the size of France.

The founding fathers of Trash Isles recently applied to the UN to be recognised as a country and they are looking for would-be citizens to sign up at change.org.

More than 110,000 people, including Al Gore and Dame Judi Dench, have already put their names down.

They hope Trash Isles will gain official recognition as a nation state and force other countries to confront the continued devastation of the world's seas and oceans.

"We want to shrink this nation. We don't want any more plastic added. The oceans are crucial to our survival and we need to protect them," said Gore.

There is so much plastic in the Pacific that significant land masses have been formed in places. Experts predict that by 2050 it will reach such epidemic proportions that there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish.

Tim Nunn, an advertising man and Trash Islands founding father, said: "We're now finding dead whales washing up in Norway and The North Sea with stomachs full of plastic bags.

"It's no longer an isolated problem. Wherever I go, from the most populated coastlines on Earth to the remotest Arctic beaches, we find plastic. If we don't all act now, then we face an ocean devoid of life in the near future."

The would-be newest nation on Earth already has a flag and designs for passports, stamps and currency. If the UN accepts its application, it will be the 196th country to join the club.

Under Article 1 of the 1993 Montevideo Convention, a country must be able to define a territory, form a government, interact with other states and have a permanent population.

The founding fathers believe these criteria will all be provided if enough citizens commit to the cause online.

As regards Trash Isles territory, the France-sized mass of plastic in the Pacific Ocean should leave no-one in doubt about the geography of the Isles.