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Plastic Pollution and The Ocean
The Ocean Sustains Life on Earth
In many ways, our ocean directly or indirectly benefits all life on Earth, nourishing humans
and other organisms, sustaining various industries and economies, regulating the weather and
protecting our environment. Covering more than 70% of the Earth’s surface, the ocean produces
90% of the oxygen living organisms breathe1, as well as a variety of natural resources like food,
energy, raw materials and other products.
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),
the ocean generates an estimated $3-6 trillion to the global economy each year by fueling
industries such as international shipping, fishing and tourism, among others. In fact:
• More than 60% of the world’s population lives within 60 miles of a coast2
• Nearly 3 billion people worldwide rely on marine and freshwater fish as their major source of
animal protein (almost 20% of their dietary intake)2
• 10-12% of the world’s population depends on fishing and aquaculture for their livelihood2
• The ocean enables 90% of global trade through shipping1
• 80% of all global tourism is based near the sea2
In addition, the ocean protects our global environment. It drives our weather by determining
rainfall, droughts and floods. Ocean waters absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2),
helping to mitigate human-caused global warming and climate change. In the last 200 years, the
ocean has absorbed 1/3 of the CO2 produced by human activities and over 90% of the extra
heat trapped by the rising concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases.3
The Prevalence of Marine Debris
The ocean is fundamental to life on Earth in so many ways, but it is being threatened by our
very actions, including overfishing, extraction (mining and drilling) and pollution from marine
debris, which is the focus of this article. Marine debris is defined by the US National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as any persistent solid material that is manufactured or
processed, and directly, indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally disposed of or abandoned into
the marine environment or the Great Lakes.
An astonishing 90% of the marine debris floating on the ocean’s surface is plastic, and 80% of
all plastics in the sea come from the land (in the form of plastic pollution that is disposed of or
makes its way into the ocean).4 According to Greenpeace, 70% of the debris that enters the
water sinks to the seabed, causing damage to plants and animals there. The rest floats on or
below the surface, often accumulating and forming swirling garbage patches in 5 gyres (natural
convergence zones of rotating currents in each of the major ocean basins that collectively cover
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40% of the ocean’s surface) for quite some time before ultimately washing ashore. While in
the ocean, these floating pieces of plastic are broken into increasingly smaller particles, called
microplastics, over many years by sunlight and waves.
Another form of microplastics less than 5mm in diameter is called microbeads. Present in many
personal care items including exfoliating facial scrubs, shower gels, deodorants and even
toothpastes, they are small enough to slip right through our water treatment facility filters and
directly into our watersheds after being washed down our drains. In a study published last
September, researchers at the University of California Davis and Oregon State University found
that roughly 8 trillion microbeads are currently finding their way into streams and oceans in the
U.S. every single day. That’s enough tiny plastic balls to cover more than 300 tennis courts–
and that’s only 1 percent of the total amount of microbeads washed down the drain each day
worldwide!5
Microbeads are in all bodies of water, not just in oceans. They’ve been found under Arctic
Sea ice and in the Great Lakes. In fact, in 2013, researchers from 5 Gyres.org and the State
University of New York found much higher microbead concentrations in the Great Lakes than in
most of their ocean samples (43,000 microbeads per square kilometer on average, skyrocketing
to 466,000 microbeads per square kilometer near cities).6 It’s much worse on the surface, with
656,000 microbeads on average per square kilometer of surface water.7
Just how much plastic debris is there in our water?
• There are over 165 million tons of plastics in the ocean today8
• At current pollution rates, the ocean will contain 1 ton of plastic for every
• 3 tons of fish by 2025, and more plastics than fish (by weight) by 20508
• Over 5 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing 269,000 tons, are currently floating on or just
below the surface of the sea, in addition to over 4 billion plastic particles per square
kilometer deep in the sea9
• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre off the California coast is the
world’s largest collection of ocean debris, measuring 2 times the size of Texas4
• Almost 9 million tons of plastic are dumped into the ocean each year8
• At current rates, this will double by 2030 and quadruple by 20508
• According to the environmental news forum Ecowatch, in the Los Angeles area
alone, 11 tons of plastic waste enters the Pacific Ocean every day
• Plastic in the ocean breaks down into such small fragments and travels so far that pieces from
a 1-liter plastic bottle could end up on every mile of beach throughout the world4
• Plastic packaging constitutes 62% of all items collected in international coastal clean-up’s8
• 100 billion plastic bags (10% of all plastic bags consumed around the world) are estimated
to enter the ocean each year10
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Together, Each of Us Can – and Do – Make a Difference
The statistics regarding plastic pollution are staggering, yet they cannot impede our movement
forward toward conservation of our oceans and ultimately, our environment. Plastics were
identified as a significant marine debris hazard for the first time in research performed by the
Ocean Conservancy in 1985. More than 30 years later, plastic pollution remains widespread,
but major advancements have been made in reducing plastic pollution overall and, more recently,
in reducing microplastic pollution.
What started with individuals communicating and educating about microplastic pollution,
spread via grass-roots efforts and social media to environmentally-conscious organizations and
companies, to local legislators, to consumer packaged goods companies, and to global entities
like the United Nations and the international think tank The Ellen MacArthur Foundation. This
movement has spawned local coastal cleanups and created International Coastal Cleanup
Day, as well as the Clean Up the World Program, which is run through the United Nations
Environmental Programme and engages more than 40 million people in 120 countries in
pollution collection activities. It has led to the passing of legislation in various Great Lakes and
coastal states, and European countries, to phase out and ban the sale of consumer personal
care products containing plastic microbeads, and to multinational companies like Unilever and
L’Oreal pledging to phase out microbead use completely (Unilever phased them out in 2015;
L’Oreal will phase them out by 2017). On December 28, 2015, the Microbead-Free Waters Act
of 2015 was signed into law, banning the manufacture of plastic microbeads in 2017 and the
sale of personal care products that contain them in 2019 in the United States. Similar initiatives
have been proposed around the world. As witnessed above, individual and collective efforts are
making strides and making change, ultimately, making a difference in the health of our ocean
and our planet.
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FOOTNOTES
1 http://sailorsforthesea.org/resources/ocean-watch/plastic-pollution-and-its-solution?gclid=CP7xndCIyMoCFdBefgodRKgHiA
2 2014 Living Planet Report, World Wildlife Fund and Zoological Society of London
3 Gattuso et al, “Contrasting futures for ocean and society from different anthropogenic CO2 emissions scenarios”, Science, 03 Jul 2015.
4 http://ecowatch.com/2014/04/07/22-facts-plastic-pollution-10-things-can-do-about-it/
5 http://www.newsweek.com/united-states-just-banned-microbeads-those-tiny-plastic-disasters-your-face-410617
6 http://ecowatch.com/2015/04/22/david-suzuki-microbeads/
7 http://onepercentfortheplanet.org/2014/10/a-list-of-products-that-contain-plastic-microbeads/
8 http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/publications/the-new-plastics-economy-rethinking-the-future-of-plastics
9 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/01/150109-oceans-plastic-sea-trash-science-marine-debris
10 http://www.iflscience.com/environment/rocks-formed-plastic-found-beach
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