Experts Warn of More Plastic than Fish in the Sea

• Currently, 32% of all plastic packaging is never collected—instead, it eventually finds its way into natural ecosystems like streams, rivers and oceans.
• It’s estimated that there are currently five plastic grocery bags full of plastic for every foot of coastline.
• By 2025 (just nine years from now!) the amount of plastic waste available to enter the oceans could more than double, according to a study published in Science.
• Much of the plastic in our oceans consists of discarded fishing line as well as “mismanaged plastic”—things like plastic water bottles and food wrappers that are washed into the ocean after being carelessly discarded.
• Which countries are the worst? The quality of waste management systems as well as population size largely determine which countries contribute the greatest mass of uncaptured waste available to become plastic marine debris, according to the Science study.
• Most plastic trash now comes from China, India and other countries experiencing rapid economic growth. According to Kara Lavender Law, research professor at the Massachusetts-based Sea Education Association, “Their consumption is rapidly accelerating, but the infrastructure hasn’t caught up yet.”
• In 2010, between 10.5 billion and 28 billion tons of plastic entered the ocean from people living within 31 miles of the coastline.
• Though developed nations like the U.S. have good waste management systems, another problem is volume. “We produce so much trash per person that even the small amount that leaks out adds up to a huge number . . . ,” Law said.
• Captain Paul Watson estimates in “The Plastic Sea” (July 24, 2006) that sixty billion pounds of resin pellets are manufactured in the U.S. every year. These plastic pellets are melted and then molded to create plastic products. They are found in oceans throughout the world, typically entering them either through direct spills during cargo-handling operations at ports, spills at sea or via storm water discharges that carry them from industrial sites.
• The highest concentrations of ocean plastic are found in five rotating currents, called gyres. Recently a potential sixth gyre was discovered.
• On average there is six times more plastic than zooplankton by dry weight in these gyres.
• The North Pacific Gyre alone is estimated to be twice the size of the state of Texas.
• Marine animals like sea birds and turtles often mistake floating debris for food. And small sea creatures can also be fooled by disintegrating plastic, mistaking it for plankton.
• Scientists at the University of California, Davis, found that around 25% of fish samples from markets in Indonesia and fishing boats in California were filled with plastic and debris such as clothing fibers.

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