SOMETHING TO CONSIDER...

• In the past 10 years, we’ve made more plastic than the last century. By 2050, the population of fish will be outnumbered by our dumped plastic.

• The largest rubbish site on the planet is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch - almost one third the size of Australia. In this garbage patch, plastic pollution outnumbers sea life there 6 to 1. 

• 300 Million tons of plastic is created yearly, and this weighs the same as the entire human population, and 50% is single-use only. 

• There are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic waste estimated to be in our oceans. 269,000 tons float, 4 billion microfibers per km² dwell below the surface.

• 70% of our debris sinks into the ocean’s ecosystem, 15% floats, and 15% lands on our beaches.

• In terms of plastic, 8.3 million tons are discarded in the sea yearly. Of which, 236,000 are ingestible microplastics that marine creatures mistake for food.

• Plastics take 500-1000 years to degrade; currently 79% is sent to landfills or the ocean, while only 9% is recycled, and 12% gets incinerated.

• 1950-1998 over 100 nuclear blast tests occurred in our oceans.

• 500 marine locations are now recorded as dead zones globally, currently the size of the United Kingdom’s surface (245,000 km²)

• 80% of global marine pollution comes from agriculture runoff, untreated sewage, discharge of nutrients and pesticides.

• 90% of the worldwide ocean debris comes from 10 rivers alone.

 

MARINE ANIMALS AFFECTED BY POLLUTION STATISTICS

How many marine animals die each year from pollution and plastic?

• 100 million marine animals die each year from plastic waste alone.

• 100,000 marine animals die from getting entangled in plastic yearly – this is just the creatures we find!

• 1 in 3 marine mammal species get found entangled in litter, 12-14,000 tons of plastic are ingested by North Pacific fish yearly.

• Our marine pollution and debris are hazardous for creatures in the gyres.

• Loggerhead sea turtles hunt jellyfish, which unfortunately look remarkably like plastic bags. 

• The majority of marine life cannot differentiate their food from plastic garbage we’ve dumped.

• These animals starve to death, clogging their stomachs with plastic so they can’t eat real food.

• For example, Albatrosses and other birds mistake plastics for fish eggs, and they sadly feed them to their chicks, which in turn perish from organ failure or starvation.

• Marine plastic pollution is found in 100% of turtles, 59% of whales, and 36% of seals in recent studies.

• The air isn’t safe either,more than 90% of all seabirds are found to have plastic pieces in their stomachs.

• Mammals like seals drown in the 705,000 tons of discarded fishing nets – this horrifying phenomenon has been dubbed ‘ghost fishing’.

• 500 marine locations are now recorded as dead zones globally, currently the size of the United Kingdom’s surface (245,000 km²)

• Our coral reefs house some 25% of all marine life known to man. When it comes in contact with marine plastic, the probability of it dying goes from 4%-89%.

• The majority of fish we consume as humans (trout, perch, cisco, etc) would have ingested plastic and microfibers.