# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
EcoBricks: Building a way out of plastic?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The boss of an Indonesian food factory is encouraging his community to creatively reuse plastic waste.

# data[].attributes.body
Good short video here about where plastic in the ocean comes from. Written article useful too

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This story is part of Planet or Plastic?-our multiyear effort to raise awareness about the global plastic waste crisis. Learn what you can do toreduce your own single-use plastics, andtake your pledge.

Yet again, plastic is proving to be everywhere in the sea. During a dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench that purportedly reached 35,849 feet, Dallas businessman Victor Vescovo claims to have found a plastic bag. And it's not even the first time: It's the third time plastic has been documented in the deepest explored part of the ocean.

Vescovo made his dive in a submersible on April 28 as part of his "Five Deeps" Expedition, which involve journeys to the deepest points in each of Earth's oceans. During the four hours Vescovo spent at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, he observed several marine creatures-one of which is a potentially new species-a plastic bag, and candy wrappers.

Few people have reached such extreme depths. Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard and U.S. Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh were the first in 1960. National Geographic explorer and movie director James Cameron then made a dive to the depths in 2012. Cameron logged 35,787 feet on his dive, just shy of the 62 feet that Vescovo claims to have reached.

Unlike humans, plastic seems to descend with ease. Earlier this year, a study sampled amphipods in six deep-sea trenches, including the Mariana, and found all were ingesting microplastics.

Deep plastic

A study released in October 2018 documented what is still the deepest known piece of plastic-a flimsy shopping bag-found at a depth of 36,000 feet inside the Mariana Trench. Scientists found it by looking through the Deep-Sea Debris Database, a collection of photos and videos taken from 5,010 dives over the previous 30 years.

Of the classifiable debris logged in the database, plastic was the most prevalent, and plastic bags in particular made up the greatest source of plastic trash. Other debris came from material like rubber, metal, wood, and cloth.

A whopping 89 percent of the plastic in the study was single use, the type that's used once and then thrown away, like a plastic water bottle or disposable utensil.

The Mariana Trench is no dark, lifeless pit; it has plenty of residents. NOAA's Okeanos Explorer vessel searched the region's depths in 2016 and found diverse life-forms, including species like coral, jellyfish, and octopus. The 2018 study also found that 17 percent of the images of plastic logged in the database showed interactions of some kind with marine life, like animals becoming entangled in debris.

Where did the plastic come from?

Single-use plastics are virtually everywhere, and they may take hundreds of years or more to break down once in the wild. The Mariana Trench has higher levels of overall pollution in certain regions than some of the most polluted rivers in China, according to a study in February 2017. The study's authors theorized that the chemical pollutants in the trench may have come in part from the breakdown of plastic in the water column.

While plastic can enter the ocean directly, such as trash blown from a beach or discarded from ships, a study published in 2017 found that most of it flows into the sea from 10 rivers that run through heavily populated regions.

Discarded fishing gear is also a major source of plastic pollution, and a study published in March 2018 found that the material comprised the bulk of the Texas-size Great Pacific Garbage Patch floating between Hawaii and California.

While the ocean clearly contains much more plastic than a single plastic bag, the item has now gone from a wind-flung metaphor for listlessness to an example of how deep an impact humans can have on the planet.

This article was originally published in May 2018. It has been updated to reflect the discovery of another plastic bag in the depths of the Mariana Trench.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
how big is the garbage patch in the pacific ocean

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Another plastic bag found at the bottom of world's deepest ocean trench

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This story is part of Planet or Plastic?-our multiyear effort to raise awareness about the global plastic waste crisis. Learn what you can do toreduce your own single-use plastics, andtake your pledge. Yet again, plastic is proving to be everywhere in the sea.

# data[].attributes.headline
WATCH: Research behind cleaning up the oceans

# data[].attributes.subject
WATCH: Research behind cleaning up the oceans

# data[].attributes.body
how they surveyed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sign up for the latest news

Get updates on our progress towards clean oceans directly in your inbox.

Close popup

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is the largest of the five offshore plastic accumulation zones in the world's oceans. It is located halfway between Hawaii and California.
PLASTIC ACCUMULATION

It is estimated that 1.15 to 2.41 million tonnes of plastic are entering the ocean each year from rivers. More than half of this plastic is less dense than the water, meaning that it will not sink once it encounters the sea.

1.15 to 2.41 million metric tonnes of plastic are entering the ocean each year.

Tweet this

The stronger, more buoyant plastics show resiliency in the marine environment, allowing them to be transported over extended distances. They persist at the sea surface as they make their way offshore, transported by converging currents and finally accumulating in the patch.

Once these plastics enter the gyre, they are unlikely to leave the area until they degrade into smaller microplastics under the effects of sun, waves and marine life. As more and more plastics are discarded into the environment, microplastic concentration in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will only continue to increase.

ESTIMATION OF SIZE

The GPGP covers an estimated surface area of 1.6 million square kilometers, an area twice the size of Texas or three times the size of France.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers an estimated surface of 1.6 million square kilometers

To formulate this number, the team of scientists behind this research conducted the most elaborate sampling method ever coordinated.

This consisted of a fleet of 30 boats, 652 surface nets and two flights over the patch to gather aerial imagery of the debris.

Sampling at different locations within the same time period allowed a more accurate estimate of the size of the patch and the plastic drifting in it.

LOCATION

Due to seasonal and interannual variabilities of winds and currents, the GPGP's location and shape are constantly changing. Only floating objects that are predominantly influenced by currents and less by winds were likely to remain within the patch.

By simulating concentration levels in the North Pacific, the researchers were able to follow the location of the patch, demonstrating significant seasonal and interannual variations. On average the patch orbits around 32°N and 145°W. However, the team observed seasonal shift from west to east and substantial variations in latitude (North to South) depending on the year.

The Ocean Cleanup is currently cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch with System 03.

Learn more

Help fund our scale-up and let's make the Great Pacific Garbage Patch a thing of the past

Donate

At the time of sampling, there were more than 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic in the patch that weigh an estimated 100,000 tonnes. These figures are much higher than previous calculations.
TOTAL MASS AND COUNT

100'000 tonnes of plastic float in the GPGP, equivalent to over 740 Boeing 777's

The mass of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) was estimated to be approximately 100,000 tonnes, which is 4-16 times more than previous calculations. This weight is also equivalent to more than 740 Boeing 777s.

4 to 16 times more plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch than Previously Estimated

Tweet this

The center of the GPGP has the highest density and the further boundaries are the least dense.

A total of 1.8 trillion plastic pieces were estimated to be floating in the patch - a plastic count that is equivalent to 250 pieces of debris for every human in the world.

Using a similar approach as they did when figuring the mass, the team chose to employ conservative estimations of the plastic count. While 1.8 trillion is a mid-range value for the total count, their calculations estimated that it may be range from 1.1 to up to 3.6 trillion pieces.

Concentration

Using data from multiple reconnaissance missions, a mass concentration model was produced to visualize the plastic distribution in the patch.

The mass concentration model, pictured below, shows how the concentration levels gradually decrease by orders of magnitude towards the outside boundaries of the GPGP. The center concentration levels contain the highest density, reaching 100s of kg/km² while decreasing down to 10 kg/km² in the outermost region.

These results prove that plastic pollution at sea, while densely distributed within the patch, is scattered and does not form a solid mass, thus demystifying the trash island concept.

Vertical distribution

The Ocean Cleanup measured the vertical distribution of plastic during six expeditions between 2013 to 2015. Results from these expeditions proved that the buoyant plastic mass is distributed within the top few meters of the ocean.,

Factors such as wind speed, sea state, and plastic buoyancy will influence vertical mixing. However, buoyant plastic will eventually float back to the surface in calmer seas. Larger pieces were observed to resurface much more rapidly than smaller pieces.

Persistency

Characteristics of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, such as plastic type and age, prove that plastic has the capacity to persist in this region.

Plastic in the patch has also been measured since the 1970's and the calculations from subsequent years show that microplastic mass concentration is increasing exponentially - proving that the input of plastic in the patch is greater than the output. Unless sources are mitigated, this number will continue to rise.

The vast majority of plastics retrieved were made of rigid or hard polyethylene (PE) or polypropylene (PP), or derelict fishing gear (nets and ropes particularly). Ranging in size from small fragments to larger objects and meter-sized fishing nets.

Size classes

Plastic within the patch was categorized into four size classes:
- Microplastics (0.05 - 0.5 cm)
- Mesoplastics (0.5 - 5 cm)
- Macroplastics (5 - 50 cm)
- Megaplastics (anything above 50 cm)

92% of the total mass is made of debris larger than 5mm

Tweet this

When accounting for the total mass, 92% of the debris found in the patch consists of objects larger than 0.5 cm, and three-quarters of the total mass is made of macro- and mega plastic. However, in terms of object count, 94% of the total is represented by microplastics.

Categorization types

75% to 86% of GPGP Plastics Comes from Fishing Activities

Once the plastics were collected, a team of volunteers classified the plastic into:
- Type H: Hard plastic, plastic sheet or film;
- Type N: Plastic lines, ropes, and fishing nets;
- Type P: Pre-production plastics (cylinders, spheres or disks);
- Type F: Fragments made of foamed materials

These plastic types were then screened for clues on age and origin. This was performed by examining each object for dates, languages, trademarks, symbols or 'made in' statements.

Why large debris matter

Because the plastics have been shown to persist in this region, they will likely break down into smaller plastics while floating in the GPGP.

This deterioration into microplastics is usually the result of sun exposure, waves, marine life, and temperature changes. Microplastics have been discovered floating within the water surface layers, but also in the water column or as far down as the ocean floor.

Once they become this small, microplastics are very difficult to remove and are often mistaken for food by marine animals.

Not only does plastic pollution in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch pose risks for the safety and health of marine animals, but there are health and economic implications for humans as well.

Impact on wildlife

Plastic has increasingly become a ubiquitous substance in the ocean. Due to its size and color, animals confuse the plastic for food, causing malnutrition; it poses entanglement risks and threatens their overall behavior, health, and existence.

84% of samples contained toxic chemicals

Studies have shown that about 900 species have encountered marine debris, and 92% of these interactions are with plastic. 17% of the species affected by plastic are on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species.

Toxic for Sea Surface Feeders

180X more plastic than food at the surface of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Tweet this
Floating at the surface of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is 180x more plastic than marine life. Animals migrating through or inhabiting this area are then likely consuming plastic in the patch. For example, sea turtles by-caught in fisheries operating within and around the patch can have up to 74% (by dry weight) of their diets composed of ocean plastics. Laysan albatross chicks from Kure Atoll and Oahu Island have around 45% of their wet mass composed of plastics from surface waters of the GPGP.

Since 84% of this plastic was found to have at least one Persistent Bio-accumulative Toxic Persistent Bio-accumulative Toxic (PBT) chemical, animals consuming this debris are therefore ingesting the chemicals attached to the plastic.
Entanglement of Marine Life
Fishing nets account for 46% of the mass in the GPGP and they can be dangerous for animals who swim or collide into them and cannot extract themselves from the net. Interaction with these discarded nets, also known as ghost nets , often results in the death of the marine life involved.

Impact on Humans and Society

Once plastic enters the marine food web, there is a possibility that it will contaminate the human food chain as well. Efforts to clean and eradicate ocean plastic have also caused significant financial burdens.

Plastic pollution costs 13B dollars per year.

Affects the Human Foodchain

Through a process called bioaccumulation, chemicals in plastics will enter the body of the animal feeding on the plastic, and as the feeder becomes prey, the chemicals will pass to the predator - making their way up the food web that includes humans. These chemicals that affected the plastic feeders could then be present within the human as well.

Affects the Economy

According to a study conducted in collaboration with Deloitte, yearly economic costs due to marine plastic are estimated to be between $6-19bn USD. The costs stem from its impact on tourism, fisheries and aquaculture, and (governmental) cleanups. These costs do not include the impact on human health and the marine ecosystem (due to insufficient research available). This means that intercepting plastic in rivers is much more cost-effective than dealing with the consequences downstream. Learn more in our interactive map.

Resulting from several research missions, traveling across and above the GPGP, The Ocean Cleanup team compiled an unprecedented amount of data to better understand the plastic that persists in this region.

Boyan Slat - The New Picture of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (2018)

Research Expeditions

"To accurately quantify a problem of the size, we had to do research at a scale that had never been done before" - Boyan Slat

Tweet this

Scientists have been studying this area since the 1970's - usually by means of dragging a small sampling net through the debris. This method showed a bias towards smaller objects and did not provide much insight into the larger pieces, and, thus, the entire scope of the GPGP.

Over the course of three years, researchers at The Ocean Cleanup went on several data collection missions. This included the Multi-Level-Trawl expedition, where they analyzed the depth at which buoyant plastic debris may be vertically distributed; the Mega Expedition using vessels to cross the patch with many trawls at once; and the Aerial Expedition which involved the use of a plane flying at low altitude to observe the debris from above.

2015 - Multi-Level-Trawl Expedition

Realizing that previous methods of analyzing the plastic in the patch needed improvement, The Ocean Cleanup designed a new research tool, called the multi-level-trawl, which allowed measurements of 11 water layers simultaneously going as far down as 5 meters below surface level. This trawl was then used in the Vertical Distribution Research.

The multi-level-trawl allowed the team to study further down into the water and understand to which depths buoyant plastic may be distributed. Through these studies, it was observed that buoyant plastic floats primarily in the first few meters of the water.

2015 - Mega Expedition

In 2015, 30 vessels and 652 surface nets, in parallel, crossed the GPGP as part of the Mega Expedition.
Numerous vessel owners offered the use of their ships for the mission. Of those ships, many carried behind them a Manta-trawl; including one mothership, the 171ft long Ocean Starr, which was able to carry two 6-meter-wide trawls and a survey balloon.

The fleet returned with over 1.2 million plastic samples that rendered an unprecedented amount of plastic measurements from the three months of study. Scientists present on the expedition noted that there was an alarming amount of plastic floating in the patch, and their preliminary findings indicated that there were more large objects than originally expected.

2016 - Aerial Expedition

After the Mega Expedition, the team wanted to learn more about these large plastic pieces that were difficult to come by. Megaplastics are more scattered than the smaller plastics, and, to study this important aspect of the patch, the team needed to cover an even larger area.

Using a C-130 Hercules aircraft, The Ocean Cleanup surveyed 311 km² with advanced sensors and an RGB camera (CS-4800i) that captured one photo every second of flight time. They took two flights and came back with over 7,000 single frame mosaics from the mission.

Ocean Research Laboratory

Once the ocean plastic was brought back to the Netherlands, it then needed to be counted, classified and analyzed.

Counting and Classifying

The first step in analyzing the plastic was to quantify it - to turn this physical matter into data.

Every piece of plastic that was recovered was cleaned, counted and classified by size and type. In total, 1.2 million plastic samples were counted, one by one, and were used to further study the physical properties and toxicity of the plastic that floats in the GPGP.

The Research team takes on the monumental task of counting and classifying the Mega Expedition samples.

Understanding Physical Properties

Not only is the size and count of the plastic in the GPGP important to calculate, but the way in which the plastic interacts in the water helps the team learn more about the buoyancy and depths of the plastic.

To test this, various experiments were performed on the plastic in environments that were intended to replicate oceanic conditions and particularly salinity. Laboratory tests were conducted to measure the vertical speed of the plastic as it resurfaces.

More than 4000 rising speed tests to understand how plastic particles behave in the water.

Understanding Toxicity

It is commonly known that harmful PBT (Persistent Bio-accumulative Toxic) chemicals are found in ocean plastics, so researchers at The Ocean Cleanup tested plastic samples from the expeditions for their chemical levels. Their results helped them to realize what chemicals are present in the patch and what that means for animals feeding there.

Plastics ranging from various type and size were analyzed by placing them in mixtures that would allow the various chemicals to be identified. A process known as Chromatography. They found through various tests that 84% of the plastics in the GPGP contain at least one type of PBT chemical.

Ocean Plastic Data Science

Numerous computational and mathematical processes and methods were used throughout the study of the GPGP, allowing the team to visualize and characterize many features of the patch and the plastic within it.

Turning Ocean Plastic into Data

When the manta trawls samples were captured and then brought on the vessel, several criteria were noted in the datasheets, including the date, duration, and final coordinates of each tow.

With this information, the team was able to identify the exact location where the plastic was retrieved. The location and duration of all tows were confirmed during a post-processing phase by inspecting all the recorded datasheets against GPS trackers that were installed on all participating vessels. The total distance of tows, for example, combined with the net's characteristics allowed the researchers to estimate the total surveyed surface.

Process Aerial Expedition Data

Aboard the C-130 Hercules aircraft used for the Aerial Expedition were three types of sensors: Lidar (an advanced active sensor that is similar to that used on Google's autonomous cars), SWIR imager (an infrared camera to detect ocean plastic) and an RGB camera.

There were 3 sensor technicians, 7 navigation personnel and 10 researchers who helped track the plastic from above and monitor the equipment on board.

The data from this expedition were then analyzed and processed resulting in multispectral and geo-referenced imagery that was used to screen the surface area for plastic by trained observers and a machine-learning algorithm, providing spatial distribution of larger debris (>0.5m).

A Key to Convert Pixels into Kilograms

The mass of the plastic debris in the GPGP was calculated using imagery from the Aerial Expedition. By comparing the top view surface against dry mass of multiple objects collected during the first expedition at sea, including ghost nets, the team was able to make these estimations.

Merge all the Data into Comprehensive Computer Models

The data and imagery gathered from these objectives were eventually used by our team of computational modelers to build various models and computer-generated graphics. These served as a visual representation of the studies and tests that had been performed during the expeditions.

Research of this nature is crucial when understanding the many facets of the GPGP. These models have helped the engineers at The Ocean Cleanup to further improve the design of the cleanup system, which was deployed mid-2018.

We also use modeling to identify the pathways that bring plastic to the gyres. In 2022 our researchers published a new study based on over 6000 plastic objects (over 5 cm in size) captured in the GPGP by our System 001/B cleaning system in 2019. We then compared our field observations with our 'virtual particle' modeling results, allowing us to see the most statistically probable sources of GPGP plastic.

This indicated that over 75% of plastics in the GPGP - not only the 46% made up of fishing nets, as we discovered in 2018 - are attributable to offshore fishing activities. More research will be required in order to discover if this also applies to the other garbage patches around the world.

Learn more

Donate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch * The Ocean Cleanup

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world and is located between Hawaii and California. Scientists of The Ocean Cleanup Foundation have conducted the most extensive analysis ever of this area.

# data[].attributes.body
Plastic and the effects on human's health

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Report: How plastic in the Ocean impacts your health | #OceanRescue

# data[].attributes.headline
SEEN IN CLASS: What happens to the plastic you throw away?

# data[].attributes.subject
SEEN IN CLASS: What happens to the plastic you throw away?

# data[].attributes.body
Good description of what happens to our rubbish

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What really happens to the plastic you throw away - Emma Bryce

# data[].attributes.body
3 ways plastic gets in the oceans

# data[].attributes.headline
8 ideas better than just banning cotton buds

# data[].attributes.subject
8 ideas better than just banning cotton buds

# data[].attributes.body
full of suggestions...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
At least two decades after cotton buds (known in my childhood home as "ear cleaners") became well known as a public health hazard, never, ever to be placed anywhere near ears, the government has announced plans to ban them, maybe next year. Low-hanging fruit and all that, but like the 5p plastic bag charge introduced in 2015, this is a bit feeble.

That doesn't mean it isn't good news: because they are small, hard and pointy these nasty pieces of plastic are dangerous for marine creatures, who sometimes eat them, and the sooner we get rid of them the better. The same goes for coffee stirrers and plastic straws, 8.5bn of which are thrown away in the UK each year. I blame dentists for my late conversion to straw-hating: they recommend straws (well, mine did) because sugary drinks are conducted more directly to children's throats, bypassing teeth.

Blue Planet's footage of albatross nests full of trash may have been (literally) the last plastic straw for my family, but in any case paper ones work fine (although someone may need to invent one sharp enough to pierce the foil-covered straw-hole in juice cartons). However, if Michael Gove's crackdown on not-very-useful single-use plastic items doesn't go far enough, what are the items that any plastic-restricting environment secretary should seek to ban?

1) Packaging that doesn't include recycling instructions

We know the basics: tins, glass and paper yes; plastic film no. But what about those trays that fish comes in, with no information on them? Manufacturers and retailers should be forced to label every piece of packaging, including lids and fastenings - so we know what to do with them. No more hovering around bins, tormented by the fear of contamination.

2) Plastic film

We use more than a million tonnes a year of the stuff, most of which isn't recycled. We can't eliminate it overnight, but please can we start trying to reduce its use - and invent biodegradable alternatives?

3) Plastic forks

More ubiquitous than ever, as salads and other non-hand-held lunch options proliferate, these are so obviously dreadful - never more so than when they come in plastic packets with knives and napkins no one needs - that they must be stopped. Biodegradable alternatives only, or cleverly designed portable, reusable ones. (These exist but mainly in camping shops - we need them on display at checkouts across the land.)

4) Plastic bottles

The government has announced a deposit return scheme (you stick bottles and cans into a reverse vending machine, it spits out cash), and the Glastonbury festival has announced a ban. We need to go further, faster. Drinking fountains must become the standard in public and private places. Now!

5) Rubbish labels on rubbish bins

One day I will do an experiment and watch public recycling bins get emptied and sorted. My hunch is that contamination is virtually universal, and these bins don't work. Some people can't be bothered to sort their litter, but it's not all our fault. Standing there with a plastic spoon, a coffee cup with plastic lid, a greasy sandwich packet with a film lid, a napkin and a plastic pot - with no tap to rinse off any food residue - it's not obvious what to do. Suggestion: taps (see above) located so that they could also be used for rinsing.

6) Councils with different recycling rules

This is tricky, because a healthy waste market ought to mean plenty of competition, with the councils who buy these services able to shop around. But for ordinary people it's confusing, as some authorities collect mixed recycling while others demand stringent sorting; and what is deemed recyclable varies too. For people who live and work in different local authority areas (extremely common in and around London), it's hard to keep track. We need homogenisation.

7) Plastic cups, including coffee cups

Reusable and biodegradable alternatives only (see cutlery, above).

8) Arctic oil exploration

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

Caribou in Alaska. The Trump administration is moving toward oil and gas drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photograph: AP

Some people think recycling is a displacement activity for people who can't really bear to shrink their carbon footprints. But while fussing over plastic forks in an airport lounge before boarding a long-haul flight might not be strictly rational, I disagree. Plastics are made from natural gas and crude oil. The problem of plastic pollution is linked to fossil fuels. By supporting the protection of the Arctic - where David Cameron once hugged a husky and Donald Trump is currently pushing exploration - Michael Gove could send a signal that the UK government's concern about pollution is real.

* Susanna Rustin is a Guardian writer and editor
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gove's cotton bud ban is feeble. This is how we can wipe out plastic | Susanna Rustin

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At least two decades after cotton buds (known in my childhood home as "ear cleaners") became well known as a public health hazard, never, ever to be placed anywhere near ears, the government has announced plans to ban them, maybe next year.

# data[].attributes.body
The plastics crisis is more urgent than you know. Recycling bottles won’t fix it

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
West Wales, last weekend. The old foam mattress lying waterlogged on an otherwise clean beach might have been at sea for months before it was washed up on the tide. A large bit of it had broken off, and the rest was crumbling. It was a clear threat to wildlife, so we heaved what was left of it above the wave line and promised to come back to dispose of it properly when it was dry.

But how do you safely dispose of an old mattress made of billions of tiny plastic particles leaking formaldehyde and other potentially dangerous chemicals? Do you burn it? Bury it? Do you expect the company who made it to come to collect it? Answers to environment secretary Michael Gove, who today pledged to stem the tide of plastic debris by announcing a consultation on a plastic-bottle return scheme for England, which aims to get people to recycle more.

The more researchers look, the more they find in the human body

Gove's initiative is welcome, but minimal, and will have zero impact on the vast and growing scale of the plastic problem. The scheme is aimed at people fed up with litter, and to Blue Planet viewers who are shocked by images of birds swallowing plastic straws and turtles being choked by plastic bags. It is no more use than a heavy smoker forgoing a single cigarette.

Since we started engineering polymers to make plastic on a mass scale in the 1950s, this byproduct of the petrochemical industry, which uses about 6% of all the oil we extract a year, has spread to myriad manufacturing processes. Plastic is now ubiquitous, insidious and impossible to avoid. It makes up our clothes, containers, bottles, electronics, food trays, cups and paints. Our cars depend on it, so do our computers, roofs and drain pipes. It's the global packaging material of choice. We sleep on it, wear it, watch it, and are in direct bodily contact with it in one form or other all day and night.

It may have profound societal benefits, but this most successful of all manmade materials sticks around for centuries. When exposed to sunlight, oxygen or the action of waves, it doesn't biodegrade but simply fragments into smaller and smaller bits, until microscopic or nano-sized particles enter the food chain, the air, the soil and the water we drink.

The BBC's hugely popular Blue Planet series and a stream of scientific studies have made us aware of how the oceans are being polluted, but we still have little understanding of how human health is impacted by the many synthetic chemicals and additives that are used to give plastic its qualities. In the past few years, minute microplastics and fibres, measuring the width of a human hair or far less, have been found in an extraordinary range of products, such as honey and sugar, shellfish, bottled and tap water, beer, processed foods, table salt and soft drinks.

In one study, 95% of all adults tested in the US had known carcinogenic chemical bisphenol A in their urine. In another, 83% of samples of tap water tested in seven countries were found to contain plastic microfibres. A study published last week revealed plastics contamination in more than 90% of bottled-water samples, which were from 11 different brands. And earlier this year the River Tame in Manchester was found to have 517,000 particles of plastic per cubic metre of sediment - that's nearly double the highest concentration ever measured across the world.

The more researchers look, the more they find in the human body. The same scientists who raised the alarm on air pollution from the deadly particles emitted by diesel vehicles are now finding plastic microparticles raining down on cities, and blown into the air from cars and construction sites, washing lines and food packaging. Indoor plastic pollution may be even worse than outdoors, with a single wash of sports kit or manmade textiles found to release thousands of microfibres into the air.

At a recent UK workshop convened by the marine group Common Seas, 30 scientists, doctors and others compared notes, and agreed unanimously that plastic is now in what we eat, drink and breathe, and constitutes a significant and growing threat to human health.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

A boy walks on a rubbish-filled creek to get his ball in Manila, Philippines. Photograph: Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images

If we can breathe in these micro- and nano-sized particles and fibres, the scientists conjecture, they are likely to get into the human bloodstream, lung tissue and breast milk, or become lodged in the gut and respiratory systems. Some microparticles may pass through the body without causing harm, others may lodge there dangerously. Many are suspected to be carcinogenic or to have hormone-disrupting properties.

The consensus is that there are great gaps in what we know about how microplastics affect human health, and that we need more robust science. We don't know the risk when we drink contaminated bottled or tap water every day. We don't know how much we are ingesting or breathing, or what effect exposure to hazardous plastic particles may have over years. We don't know the concentrations that are safe for adults, let alone infants. There is mounting concern that under-studied microplastic particles threaten health by presenting a potentially major source of toxic chemicals to the human body.

Although we have known for years that some of the additives used to make plastics flexible, transparent or durable are chemically dangerous, few have been tested on humans. Some countries have banned some chemicals - but there is no consistency, and the chemical companies have found it easy to avoid regulation, finding substitutes that are potentially just as dangerous.

It is not enough to single out plastic bottles, coffee cups, or the microbeads found in cosmetics. We urgently need the government to form a comprehensive plastic action plan. Banning all plastic bags and single-use packaging would be a good start, but we need to go way beyond that. Plastic production has to be reduced, just as alternatives should be encouraged. Regulators must think about phasing out whole groups of chemicals of concern, rather than slowly restricting individual chemicals one at a time, and consumers must be helped to understand what they are being exposed to, and to navigate the complexity of what can be recycled, composted or burned.

In the 1950s the world made about 2m tonnes of plastic a year. Now that figure is 330m tonnes a year - and it is set to treble again by 2050. It's not enough to return a few plastic bottles, or even to pick up an old mattress on a beach.

* John Vidal is a former environment editor of the Guardian
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The plastics crisis is more urgent than you know. Recycling bottles won't fix it | John Vidal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
West Wales, last weekend. The old foam mattress lying waterlogged on an otherwise clean beach might have been at sea for months before it was washed up on the tide. A large bit of it had broken off, and the rest was crumbling.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Biologist Dr Pennie Lindeque from Plymouth Marine Laboratory explains how plastics in the marine environment get into the food chain.

# data[].attributes.headline
Good to get an idea of how much plastic there is on our daily lives

# data[].attributes.subject
Good to get an idea of how much plastic there is on our daily lives

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We all know, in theory, that we ought to use less plastic. We've all been distressed by the sight of Blue Planet II's hawksbill turtle entangled in a plastic sack, and felt chastened as we've totted up our weekly tally of disposable coffee cups. But still, UK annual plastic waste is now close to 5m tonnes, including enough single-use plastic to fill 1,000 Royal Albert Halls; the government's planned elimination of "avoidable" plastic waste by 2042 seems a quite dazzling task. It was reported this week that scientists at the University of Portsmouth have accidentally developed a plastic-eating mutant enzyme, and while we wait to see if that will save us all, for one individual the realisation of just how much plastic we use has become an intensely personal matter.

One early evening in mid-2016, Daniel Webb, 36, took a run along the coast near his home in Margate. "It was one of those evenings where the current had brought in lots of debris," he recalls, because as Webb looked down at the beach from his route along the promenade he noticed a mass of seaweed, tangled with many pieces of plastic. "Old toys, probably 20 years old, bottles that must have been from overseas because they had all kinds of different languages on them, bread tags, which I don't think had been used for years ..." he says. "It was very nostalgic, almost archaeological. And it made me think, as a mid-30s guy, is any of my plastic out there? Had I once dropped a toy in a stream near Wolverhampton, where I'm from, and now it was out in the sea?"

Webb decided that he would start a project to keep all the plastic he used in the course of an entire year. He would not modify his plastic consumption in that time (although he had already given up buying bottled water), and each item would be carefully washed and stored in his spare room.

Webb is a fan of a project - prior to this he ran six half-marathons in six days - but he had little notion of what he would do with his personal plastic mountain until last summer, when he had the idea to make it into an exhibition. Earlier this month, Webb's 12-month haul became part of the Mural-by-the-Sea project, displayed on a billboard at Margate's Dreamland funfair, rechristened Everyday Plastic and documented by the photographer Ollie Harrop.

"Three days before the billboard went up, we started weighing and sorting and counting it all," Webb says. "There were 4,490 pieces in the collection. If you take me as an average person and multiply it by the UK population it means we throw away 293bn plastic items a year." But he is cautious about speaking in such terms. "As soon as you talk billions, it all becomes quite abstract," he explains. "It's like people talk about climate change, and you can't get your head around it. But plastic is tangible, and if you take it back to individual items it starts to resonate."

Of those 4,490 individual items, 60% was food packaging - largely salad and vegetable wrappers and bread bags. Ninety-three per cent was single-use plastic, and just eight items - mostly coffee lids - were made out of biodegradable material.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

'People say: wow, you really like Hula Hoops.' Photograph: Ollie Harrop 2018/Everyday Plastic

"I suppose it is a snapshot of a year in my life," Webb says. "People look at the billboard and say, 'Wow, you really like Hula Hoops, don't you?' Or they say how beautiful it looks, with all the different colours." But it was looking at all the different-coloured items as he sifted through the plastic pile that proved the greatest revelation for Webb. "My reaction when I sorted it all into categories was quite visceral," he says. "You get a really clear picture of what you're consuming and you figure out that all of this stuff was just designed for you to buy it. That black plastic of meat packaging is to hide the colour of the blood, or the brown plastic of mushroom packaging makes the mushrooms look earthy." He laughs. "I work in marketing, and I never thought I'd say this, but we really are being sold stuff we do not need. There is an epidemic of overproduction and overconsumption."

Webb has been a Margate resident for two years, and as he made his regular visit to his local Aldi, he became increasingly aware that it was "practically impossible to go to a supermarket and come away without any plastic packaging ... an aubergine comes in a plastic bag, onions come in a plastic net. And many of these things are made to be obsolete - something like a plastic bag is designed to be used for maybe just 15 minutes. People carry their shopping home in it and then they chuck it away. And it outlives all of them."

Kerbside recycling is limited in Thanet, so prior to his Everyday Plastic project Webb diligently saved up all his bottles and paper and plastic and tins to take to the local recycling centre himself. "But when I took it to the tip, I said: 'Excuse me, where's the plastic recycling?'" he remembers. "And they said: 'Mate, just stick it in the household waste.'"

Recycling, he says, is not the answer - after all, in Webb's collection, just 56 items were made from recycled material. "And that highlights the limits of it," he says. "Recycling is absolutely vital, and we need to invest more in recycling facilities and infrastructure. But really, we need to find ways of using less."

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

'Just changing one thing is really important.' Photograph: Ollie Harrop 2018/Everyday Plastic

"Supermarkets are lobbied hard by the packaging industry," Webb says, talking of how he recently visited a shop in Brighton that prides itself on being plastic-free - an achievement that is, of course, laudable. But he also noted that 100g of bran flakes in the shop cost 55p - meaning an average-sized box would add up to more than £4. "We need subsidies for people doing this kind of thing," he says.

The billboard is one element of what Webb hopes will become a bigger project. "I want to take it into schools, and I want to do an exhibition, and I'm working with Friends of the Earth and Surfers Against Sewage to take it to festivals this summer," he says. He will also be publishing a report into the findings of his project at the end of May.

"I'm just one of millions of everyday people who have woken up to what they're consuming," he says. "And the aim is to speak to the awareness-laggers, making people realise that changing your whole lifestyle is difficult, but just changing one thing is still really important. I didn't buy a water bottle last year and I might have used 300 - if everyone did that it would be saving a lot of plastic from going into the sea."
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
I kept all my plastic for a year - the 4,490 items forced me to rethink

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Daniel Webb accrued a mountain of plastic - including many packets of Hula Hoops - and made it into a mural, now on display at Dreamland in Margate. We are overproducing and overconsuming, he says, and recycling is not the answer

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From boar hair toothbrushes to beeswax food wrap, here's how you can dump the disposable plastics.

# data[].attributes.headline
You have to write an answer to this: what is the worst effect of the plastic pollution of our oceans? (Give reasons for your answer and show you have thought about more than one point of view)

# data[].attributes.subject
You have to write an answer to this: what is the worst effect of the plastic pollution of our oceans? (Give reasons for your answer and show you have thought about more than one point of view)

# data[].attributes.headline
WATCH and READ: So many short news videos from the BBC!! 

# data[].attributes.subject
WATCH and READ: So many short news videos from the BBC!! 

# data[].attributes.body
Excellent variety

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Rich Horner filmed himself swimming through rubbish off the island of Nusa Penida near Bali.

# data[].attributes.body
(seen in class)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Laos to Hawaii, Tropic of Cancer - BBC Two

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Simon Reeve finishes his journey around the Tropic of Cancer in Hawaii, where he discovers that the paradise islands are the extinction capital of the world, with more species dying-out than anywhere else on the planet.

# data[].attributes.body
dutch lad clears up plastic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Boyan Slat is a 20-year-old on a mission - to rid the world's oceans of floating plastic. He has dedicated his teenage years to finding a way of collecting it. But can the system really work - and is there any point when so much new plastic waste is still flowing into the sea every day?

"I don't understand why 'obsessive' has a negative connotation, I'm an obsessive and I like it," says Boyan Slat. "I get an idea and I stick to it."

This idea came to him at the age of 16, in the summer of 2011, when diving in Greece. "I saw more plastic bags than fish," says Slat. He was shocked, and even more shocked that there was no apparent solution. "Everyone said to me: 'Oh there's nothing you can do about plastic once it gets into the oceans,' and I wondered whether that was true."

Over the last 30 to 40 years, millions of tonnes of plastic have entered the oceans. Global production of plastic now stands at 288 million tonnes per year, of which 10% ends up in the ocean in time. Most of that - 80% - comes from land-based sources. Litter gets swept into drains, and ends up in rivers - so that plastic straw or cup lid you dropped, the cigarette butt you threw on the road... they could all end up in the sea.

The plastic is carried by currents and congregates in five revolving water systems, called gyres, in the major oceans, the most infamous being the huge Pacific Garbage Patch, half way between Hawaii and California.

Although the concentration of plastic in these areas is high - it's sometimes described as a plastic soup - it's still spread out over an area twice the size of Texas. What's more, the plastic does not stay in one spot, it rotates. These factors make a clean-up incredibly challenging.

"Most people have this image of an island of trash that you can almost walk on, but that's not what it's like," says Slat. "It stretches for millions of square kilometres - if you went there to try and clean up by ship it would take thousands of years." Not only that, it would be very costly in terms of both money and energy, and fish would be accidentally caught in the nets.

Slat had always enjoyed working out solutions to puzzles, and while pondering this one, it came to him - rather than chase plastic, why not harness the currents and wait for it to come to you?

At school, Slat developed his idea further as part of a science project. An array of floating barriers, anchored to the sea bed, would first catch and concentrate the floating debris. The plastic would move along the barriers towards a platform, where it could then be efficiently extracted. The ocean current would pass underneath the barriers, taking all buoyant sea life with it. There would be no emissions, and no nets for marine life to get entangled in. The collected ocean plastic would be recycled and made into products - or oil.

The high school science project was awarded Best Technical Design at Delft University of Technology. For most teenagers, it would probably have ended there, but Slat was different. He had been interested in engineering from a very young age. "First I built tree houses, then zip-wires, then it evolved towards bigger things," he says. "By the time I was 13, I was very interested in rocketry." This led him to set a Guinness World Record for the most water rockets launched at the same time: 213, from a sports field in his native Delft. "The experience taught me how to get people crazy enough to do things you want, and how to approach sponsors." Useful skills, as it turned out.

When Slat began studying aerospace engineering at Delft University, the idea of cleaning up the oceans just wouldn't let him go - he says it niggled at him like "an asymmetrically positioned label" on a pair of boxer shorts. He set up a foundation, The Ocean Cleanup, and explained his concept in a TedX Talk: How the Oceans can Clean Themselves. Then, six months into his course, he made the decision to pause both university and social life to try make it a reality.

His entire budget consisted of 200 euros (£160) of saved-up pocket money, so he spent a few desolate months trying to get sponsorship. "It was so disheartening, because no-one was interested," he says. "I remember one day contacting 300 companies for sponsorship - only one replied, and that, too, resulted in a dead end."

But then something happened. On 26 March 2013, months after it had gone online, Slat's TedX talk went viral. "It was unbelievable," he says. "Suddenly we got hundreds of thousands of people clicking on our site every day. I received about 1,500 emails per day in my personal mailbox from people volunteering to help." He set up a crowd-funding platform that made $80,000 in 15 days.

Slat still doesn't know what made his idea take off like that, but he describes it as a great relief. "A year ago I wasn't sure it would succeed," he says. "But considering the size of the problem it was important to at least try."

The amount of plastic being discarded into the marine environment is such that we could eventually see an ocean where the amount of plastics is roughly one third the total biomass of fish - 1lb of plastic for every 2lbs of fish, according to Nicholas Mallos from Ocean Conservancy, which organises coastal clean-ups.

According to the UN Environment Programme there are on average 13,000 pieces of floating plastic per square kilometre of ocean - but that goes up to millions of pieces in the gyres. Many of these particles end up being accidentally ingested by marine animals, which can die of starvation because of the plastic filling their stomachs.

Albatrosses are particularly vulnerable because they feed on the eggs of flying fish, which are attached to floating objects - now most likely a piece of plastic. Dr Jan Andries van Franeker from the Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem Studies (IMARES) in the Netherlands has some of these objects in a pot in his office: a toothbrush, cigarette lighters, floaters from fish nets, a golf ball, a tampon applicator - all found in albatross chick's carcasses. "The plastics may not directly kill the bird, but it will have less energy reserves and it will have a higher load of chemicals so if things get problematic at sea, or if you have to raise a chick, those are the ones that die first," he told the BBC.

Turtles tend to be the victims of plastic bags, which when immersed in water look just like jellyfish. Evolutionary adaptations make it impossible for turtles to reject bags once they've started to eat. "Because jellyfish are so slippery, turtles have a system in their throat that stops their prey from slipping out, so even if you find out it's a plastic bag, it has to go in all the way," says van Franeker.

The amount of industrial plastic pellets van Franeker finds in the birds has halved since the 1980s - it seems the industry has at least partially cleaned up its act. "It's an economic loss if the factory loses raw product," he says. "Unfortunately with consumer plastic, there is little profit in taking back waste. It doesn't cost us anything to throw it away."

But the cost to us could be very high, in the long term.

Plastics can act as a sponge and soak up chemicals in the water. "There are a lot of pollutants in the oceans now, things like DDT," Nancy Wallace, director of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Debris Program, told the BBC. "Those chemicals adsorb on to the plastic and we know birds and fish are eating those pieces of plastic - so the question is, how does that transfer up the food chain and what is the impact?"
Find out more

Boyan Slat spoke to Outlook, BBC World Service - Listen via the iPlayer

Jan Andries van Franeker and Nancy Wallace spoke to Shared Planet, BBC Radio 4 - Listen via the iPlayer

Professor Richard Thompson and Dr Kerry Howell spoke to Costing the Earth, BBC Radio 4 - Listen via the iPlayer

It is a grave situation - so when Slat came along with a seemingly simple solution, he began making headlines across the world. Could a teenager save the world's oceans? His enthusiasm fired up millions of people, but along with the offers of help and donations, came criticism. It wouldn't work, some said. Others argued that it would be better to collect litter from beaches, where it gets deposited by waves.

When people say something is impossible I like to prove them wrong
Boyan Slat, Marine debris entrepreneur

"It's in my nature that when people say something is impossible I like to prove them wrong," Slat says. Having caught the world's attention, the first thing he did was to disappear from sight. He needed scientific evidence to back up his theory and answer his critics.

He assembled a team of 100 people, mostly volunteers, who were spread out across the world - the lead oceanographer was based in Australia. To manage so many people at such a young age was "interesting", says Slat. "We had an intern who was 24 and we weren't too satisfied with him - I remember some colleagues saying: 'Oh, he's so young, he'll learn,' not realising that they were talking to a 19-year-old."

During the feasibility study Slat visited the gyre known as the North Atlantic Garbage Patch, where the platform is destined to be built. "I was pretty seasick the first three days. There were winds of 25-30 knots and waves 3m high. It was quite an experience," he says.

In June, a month before his 20th birthday, Slat re-emerged with a 530-page feasibility report, the cover of which was made out of recycled ocean plastic. The report, based on extensive testing and computer simulations and authored by 70 scientists and engineers, answered many of the questions which had been levelled at him by his critics. It was followed by another crowd-funding campaign which swiftly reached its target of $2m. This will fund a larger pilot next year and Slat hopes the North Atlantic platform could be a reality in 2020.

But if Slat expected all experts in the field of ocean plastics to welcome his concept this time, he was wrong.
Plastic soup on your plate?

Ocean plastic breaks down into tiny fragments called microplastics, a term first coined by Prof Richard Thompson.

Thompson found small quantities of microplastics in a range of fish species in the English Channel. "This in my opinion doesn't constitute a risk in terms of human consumption, but I am concerned about the longer-term," he told the BBC.

A study from Ghent University in Belgium found microplastics in mussels and oysters.

Particles smaller than 2mm wouldn't get caught by Slat's system, but removing larger pieces would help to prevent the quantity of microplastics from increasing.

One problem is that plastic isn't just floating on the surface, but found throughout the water column, even in sediment at the bottom of the ocean. Dr Kerry Howell, a deep-sea researcher at the University of Plymouth, told the BBC that she has found rubbish in the deepest parts of the ocean. "You're going to a place no-one's ever been to before, you're going to the last frontier on earth, exploring new places, and you find that our litter's got there first," she says. "It's like going to the moon and finding a crisp packet."

It's like going to the moon and finding a crisp packet
Dr Kerry Howell , Deep-sea ecologist

Another issue is the potential effect on wildlife. "In terms of biological damage the concept is flawed," says van Franeker. "They say anything alive will be able to swim under the curtain, but some, like the fish eggs, will be trapped with the plastic which means they will still be there to be eaten by albatrosses - and in 10 years' time you will take away all the fish eggs along with the plastic."

Aside from the question whether the Ocean Cleanup technology could work, there is also the question whether it should be a priority.

"It seems a foolish strategy to focus on approaches to take litter out of the oceans, when we could prevent it from getting there in the first place," says Prof Richard Thompson of Plymouth University.

"If I had a sum of money to invest in the problem then I would spend 95% of it on approaches to stop the plastic from entering the oceans. Of course we want to find ways to remove litter but we shouldn't delude ourselves. It's like trying to mop up the bathroom floor while leaving the bath overflowing and the taps turned on full."

The mop analogy is one that Slat has heard often, and it really gets him fired up. "First of all, the 'mop' hasn't been invented yet so it certainly can't do any harm to try," he says. As for focusing solely on prevention, he feels it is an "uninspiring and demotivating message to say 'The best we can do is not make it worse'."

He adds: "Of course it shouldn't be an excuse to pollute, but I think it's a motivating message that it's not a hole that's too deep to climb out of."

Nicholas Mallos disagrees. "The risk is that people think there is one device that will solve our problem in a few years - this grossly over-simplifies the problem," he says.

"He has bright ideas about how to get plastic of various sizes out of the water, but it would be better if he directed his efforts to smaller-scale projects in river outlets," says van Franeker. "Only a fraction of the money would be necessary and it would be more effective."

Several other companies are now emerging with clean-up technology designed to capture plastic in rivers and streams, like the Plastic Visser ('plastic fisher') which is being trialled in the Netherlands, or the Trash Wheel - a solar-and water-powered barrier being used in Baltimore harbour.

Slat, too, is looking to develop spin-off technologies for use in rivers. "It is difficult to adapt something that works in rivers to the sea, whereas it's actually quite easy to adapt something that was developed for the worst conditions in the world - the sea - to work in rivers," he says. "That is why we're approaching it in this order."

At this point he is planning to stay in the Netherlands. "A lot of big names are here that I have to work with so it's a very suitable place to be - it's like the Silicon Valley of the off-shore industry," he says. "Perhaps [the Dutch] are under the impression that through engineering everything can be solved, and we're pretty good at mastering the ocean."

Meanwhile, as his friends lead normal carefree lives, Slat still works 15-hour days. "I haven't seen my friends for ages, they try to annoy me by telling me how fun university is," he says.

Slat doesn't think his youth has held him back, if anything it may have been an advantage: "Not only does it make the story more appealing, but I think I'm very enthusiastic about my concept and that really helped," he says.

Besides, he had everything to play for. "I had nothing to lose except my study income, so it was not a worry," he says. "If you want to do something, do it as soon as possible." A rallying cry to teenage inventors everywhere.
Boyan Slat spoke to Outlook on the BBC World Service. Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook Listen again on iPlayer or get the Outlook podcast.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Boyan Slat is a 20-year-old on a mission - to rid the world's oceans of floating plastic. He has dedicated his teenage years to finding a way of collecting it. But can the system really work - and is there any point when so much new plastic waste is still flowing into the sea every day?

# data[].attributes.body
Good for the basics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Plastic polluting our oceans - CBBC Newsround

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
More than 8 million tonnes of plastic goes into the world's oceans every year, according to new research from the University of Georgia in America.

# data[].attributes.body
Wiki page

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Great Pacific garbage patch, also described as the Pacific trash vortex, is a gyre of marine debris particles in the central North Pacific Ocean discovered between 1985 and 1988. It is located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N to 42°N.

# data[].attributes.headline
A campaign group/ charity aiming to sort out the problem

# data[].attributes.subject
A campaign group/ charity aiming to sort out the problem

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
DAVID KLEMENT is the executive director of St. Petersburg College's Institute for Strategic Policy Solutions, which is dedicated to advancing academic excellence, community engagement, civics literacy and public understanding through [...]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rethink Plastic. Save Our Seas * Plastic Oceans Foundation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
DAVID KLEMENT is the executive director of St. Petersburg College's Institute for Strategic Policy Solutions, which is dedicated to advancing academic excellence, community engagement, civics literacy and public understanding through [...]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Helen Briggs
BBC News

Plastic is one of the biggest threats to the future of coral reefs after ocean warming, say scientists.

More than 11 billion items of plastic were found on a third of coral reefs surveyed in the Asia-Pacific region.

This figure is predicted to increase to more than 15 billion by 2025.

Plastic raises by 20-fold the risk of disease outbreaks on coral reefs, according to research. Plastic bags, bottles and rice sacks were among the items found.

"Plastic is one of the biggest threats in the ocean at the moment, I would say, apart from climate change," said Dr Joleah Lamb of Cornell University in Ithaca, US.

"It's sad how many pieces of plastic there are in the coral reefs ...if we can start targeting those big polluters of plastic, hopefully we can start reducing the amount that is going on to these reefs."

Precious resource

More than 275 million people rely on coral reefs for food, coastal protection, tourism income, and cultural importance.

It's thought that plastic allows diseases that prey on the marine invertebrates that make-up coral reefs to flourish. Branching or finger-like forms of corals are most likely to get entangled in plastic debris.

These are important habitats for fish and fisheries, the scientists say.

"A lot of times we come across big rice sacks or draping plastic bags," said Dr Lamb, who led the study.

"What we do find is these corals with a lot of complexity like branches and finger-like corals will become eight times more likely to be entangled in these types of plastics."

In the study, published in the journal Science, international researchers surveyed more than 150 reefs from four countries in the Asia-Pacific region between 2011 and 2014.

Plastic was found on one-third of the coral reefs surveyed. Reefs near Indonesia were loaded with most plastic, while Australian reefs showed the lowest concentration. Thailand and Myanmar were in the middle.

"The country's estimated amount of mismanaged plastics - so the way they deal with their plastic waste - was a strong predictor of how much we would see on the reef," said Dr Lamb.

Coral reefs face many threats. Coral bleaching is caused by unusually warm water. Coral polyps loose algae from their tissues, which drains them of their colour. They may recover if temperature changes are reversed in a reasonably short time, but this process can take many years.

In the case of diseases, organisms attack coral, leading to likely death. Previous research has found that plastic debris can stress coral through blocking out light and oxygen, thereby giving pathogens a chance to take hold.

Based on projections of plastic waste going into the ocean, the researchers suggest that the number of plastic items snagged on Asia-Pacific corals may increase from 11.1 billion to 15.7 billion plastic items by 2025.

An estimated 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the ocean in a single year.

More than three-quarters of this plastic is thought to originate on land.

Follow Helen on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A third of coral reefs 'entangled with plastic'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Helen Briggs BBC News Plastic is one of the biggest threats to the future of coral reefs after ocean warming, say scientists. More than 11 billion items of plastic were found on a third of coral reefs surveyed in the Asia-Pacific region. This figure is predicted to increase to more than 15 billion by 2025.

# data[].attributes.headline
What are the different ways we can clean up the plastic?

# data[].attributes.subject
What are the different ways we can clean up the plastic?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Plastic is a huge problem in the oceans, but engineers and research groups are working on how to deal with it. Hank describes some of the leading proposed solutions. Hosted by: Hank Green ---------- Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow ---------- Dooblydoo thanks go to the following Patreon supporters -- we couldn't make SciShow without them!

# data[].attributes.headline
Children taking action Hawaii against plastic

# data[].attributes.subject
Children taking action Hawaii against plastic

# data[].attributes.body
How is plastic pollution affecting the future of our oceans?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Kids Take Action Against Ocean Plastic | Short Film Showcase

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Despite the vastness of Earth's oceans, plastic pollutants are turning up everywhere, from the deep sea to the Arctic ice pack. In this short film from filmmaker Chris Hanson, 17 Hawaiian students study the impact of plastic pollution on their local beaches.

# data[].attributes.headline
So you threw away that plastic bottle ....

# data[].attributes.subject
So you threw away that plastic bottle ....

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What really happens to the plastic you throw away - Emma Bryce

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bali beaches vanishing under TONNES of plastic rubbish

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The island of Bali in Indonesia has a massive problem. Its beautiful beaches are disappearing underneath mountains of plastic rubbish.

# data[].attributes.body
What are they doing in Penzance, Cornwall?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A Cornish town has become the first community in the UK to be awarded "plastic-free" status after dozens of residents and business people backed a grassroots scheme aimed at helping clean up oceans and beaches.

As part of a campaign being run by the marine conservation charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), Penzance has been given "plastic-free coastlines approved" status.

Shops, cafes and visitor attractions have reduced single-use plastics and children and adults have taken part in beach cleans. The town'sstatus was confirmed after the town council voted to support the initiative.

Another 100 communities across the UK are taking part in SAS's plastic-free coastlines scheme and working towards the status, which has been inspired by the fair trade and transition town schemes.

Rachel Yates, an SAS regional representative in Penzance, said she had been impressed by how keen people were to take part.

"Everybody you speak to wants to do something," she said. "People are contacting us asking what they can do. We haven't had to chase people."

Among those who have signed up to Plastic Free Penzance is the Cornish Hen Deli. Owner Sarah Shaw said she was using biodegradable pots, wooden cutlery, paper straws and cornstarch plates for outside catering jobs.

She said: "It's hugely important because one of the reasons a lot of people live down here is the connection to the sea and the elements. You're so much more aware of what's going on that the thought of not doing something about it is awful."

Flo Gibson, manager of the Jubilee open-air pool cafe, said reducing plastics was becoming easier. She said: "People are becoming more aware of plastic and the negative effects. Suppliers are also a lot more aware."

Plastic Free Penzance's next moves include setting up a plastic-free clinic to spread the word further and speaking to holiday home owners. They will also lobby local supermarket managers, although the emphasis is on changing behaviour on a local level and leaving national campaigning to SAS leaders.

To win the plastic free coastlines approved status, Penzance had to complete five objectives set out by SAS such as setting up a steering group and organising beach cleans. Its status was confirmed after Penzance town council passed a motion on Monday pledging to support all plastic-free initiatives in the area and to lead by example through removing single-use plastics from their own premises.
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Penzance wins first plastic-free status award to help clean up beaches

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A Cornish town has become the first community in the UK to be awarded "plastic-free" status after dozens of residents and business people backed a grassroots scheme aimed at helping clean up oceans and beaches. As part of a campaign being run by the marine conservation charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), Penzance has been given "plastic-free coastlines approved" status.

# data[].attributes.body
Look how far plastic has got. Also look at all the other video links at the top of this page about plastic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Plastic pollution has reached the 'pristine' Arctic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Plastic waste is increasing in the supposedly pristine wilderness of the Arctic.

# data[].attributes.body
WARNING: contains a stomach dissection of a bird to look for plastic!!

# data[].attributes.body
What is iceland(the shop) doing?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Iceland has become the first major retailer to commit to eliminate plastic packaging for all its own-brand products.

The supermarket chain, which specialises in frozen food, said it would go plastic-free within five years to help end the "scourge" of plastic pollution.

The current plastic packaging would be replaced with paper and pulp trays and paper bags, which would be recyclable through domestic waste collections or in-store recycling facilities.

The supermarket recently carried out a survey in which 80% of 5,000 people polled said they would endorse the move to go plastic-free.

Iceland managing director, Richard Walker, said: "The world has woken up to the scourge of plastics. A truckload is entering our oceans every minute, causing untold damage to our marine environment and ultimately humanity - since we all depend on the oceans for our survival.

"The onus is on retailers, as leading contributors to plastic packaging pollution and waste, to take a stand and deliver meaningful change."

He also said Iceland would ensure all packaging was fully recyclable and would be recycled, through support for initiatives such as a bottle deposit return scheme for plastic bottles.

Iceland's plastic-free packaging. Photograph: Iceland/PA

As it was technologically and practically possible to create less environmentally harmful alternatives, "there really is no excuse any more for excessive packaging that creates needless waste and damages our environment", Walker added.

Iceland has already removed plastic disposable straws from its own label range and new food ranges in the next few months will use paper-based food trays.

The move, which has been welcomed by environmental campaigners, comes amid growing concern over plastic pollution in the world's oceans, where it can harm and kill wildlife such as turtles and seabirds.

Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven, called the announcement a "bold pledge" and that it was "now up to other retailers and food producers to respond to that challenge".

Last week, Theresa May pledged to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste within 25 years as part of the government's environmental strategy.

The prime minister promised to extend the successful 5p levy on plastic bags to smaller shops, as well as exploring a potential charge on single-use plastic containers such as takeaway boxes.

Other initiatives include a plan to urge supermarkets to introduce aisles without any plastic packaging, where all food is sold loose, along with new research funding for "plastics innovation" and aid to help developing nations deal with their plastic waste.

Samantha Harding, from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: "Iceland are steadfastly laying the path that all supermarkets should be following.

"Alongside its support for a deposit return system, Iceland's commitment to go plastic-free by 2023 shows that powerful retailers can take decisive action to provide what their customers want, without the environment paying for it."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Iceland supermarket vows to eliminate plastic on all own-branded products

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Iceland has become the first major retailer to commit to eliminate plastic packaging for all its own-brand products. The supermarket chain, which specialises in frozen food, said it would go plastic-free within five years to help end the "scourge" of plastic pollution.

# data[].attributes.body
What are microbeads?
What products are they in?
How do they get in the sea?
Why is this a bad thing?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Plastic microbeads banned in the UK - CBBC Newsround

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With many experts worried about plastic in the oceans, the UK has decided to ban plastic microbeads in products like face scrubs and toothpastes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Big meeting to discuss how to tackle plastic pollution - CBBC Newsround

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There’s 8 million tonnes of plastic in the world’s oceans so now experts are talking about what to do.

# data[].attributes.headline
Here's a Greenpeace ad spoofing Coke. Is the plastic in the ocean coke's fault or ours?

# data[].attributes.subject
Here's a Greenpeace ad spoofing Coke. Is the plastic in the ocean coke's fault or ours?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Our new and improved Coca-Cola Christmas ad

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For decades Coca-Cola has used Christmas as a marketing opportunity to sell itself as a happy joyful brand - but this global drinks giant's plastic pollution is not filling us with festive cheer. Please watch and share our alternative Coke Christmas advert.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The invention that could clean up Pacific Ocean's plastic waste - CBBC Newsround

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Henderson Island in the Pacific Ocean has more plastic waste than anywhere else in the world, but there's a new invention that could help clean it up.

# data[].attributes.body
He has an idea. what is it?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Plastic rubbish dumped in the sea causes big problems for sea life, and can pollute the water we drink.

But a new invention could provide the answer to cleaning up the ocean - by sifting off all the rubbish.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a massive area of ocean in America between California and Hawaii, where loads of plastic waste gathers.

Now a Dutch company hopes its idea will make cleaning up the rubbish a much quicker and easier job.

What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

Millions of tonnes of rubbish end up in the oceans every year, and most of it comes from the land.

For example, litter gets swept into drains and ends up in rivers - so that plastic straw or cup lid you dropped could all end up in the sea.

And because most plastic isn't biodegradable - meaning it can't easily be broken down - it may be stuck there for many years.

The plastic is carried by currents and goes into one of the world's five revolving water systems.

These water systems are called gyres, and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the most famous one - half way between Hawaii and California.

It also has another name - the Pacific Trash Vortex.

Not everyone agrees on its size, but it has been called the largest rubbish dump on Earth.

So, what's the big idea?

The main idea behind the Ocean Cleanup is to let the ocean's currents do the work.

U-shaped floating barriers are attached to the ocean floor by anchors, but fish and animals can still swim underneath it without getting trapped.

The barriers will move more slowly than the plastic and act as "artificial coastlines", picking up rubbish as they go.

Then the floating plastic is forced to a collection point, where it can be taken out and shipped to shore for recycling, into things like sunglasses and car bumpers.

The idea came from Boyan Slat, a 22-year-old from the Netherlands, who created the Ocean Cleanup back in 2014.

Back then he said he hoped to clean up 42% of the ocean's rubbish in 10 years.

Since then he's developed his original idea into this one, which he says will cost less and make the clean up much faster.

His new aim to is to remove 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in just five years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How do you clean up the ocean's biggest rubbish dump?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Plastic rubbish dumped in the sea causes big problems for sea life, and can pollute the water we drink. But a new invention could provide the answer to cleaning up the ocean - by sifting off all the rubbish.