Each year, eight million tonnes of plastic is dumped into the oceans. That’s the equivalent of nearly 57,000 blue whales. By 2050, ocean plastic will outweigh fish.
The seas now have giant garbage patches — five in all, with the largest, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, made of an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of trash and twice the size of Texas.
Ocean trash can be broken into microplastics by sun exposure and wave action, after which it can enter the food chain.
With each load of laundry, more than 700,000 synthetic microfibres are washed into our waterways. Unlike natural materials such as cotton or wool, these plasticised fibres do not break down.
In 2004, scientists counted 146 hypoxic zones (low-oxygen areas that could suffocate and kill animal life) in the oceans, which increased to 405 by 2008. In 2017, a dead zone as big as New Jersey was found in the Gulf of Mexico.
Greenhouse emissions leading to increased ocean acidification makes it difficult for bivalves such as mussels, clams and oysters to form shells, endangering their survival.