The Scale of the Problem
The quantities are immense. At least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year, and plastic makes up 80% of all marine debris found from surface waters to deep-sea sediments. An estimated 20 million metric tons of plastic litter end up in the environment every year. Production has overwhelmed disposal. About 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic has been produced since the 1950s – the weight of roughly a billion elephants or 47 million blue whales. Only about 9% of this plastic has been recycled, 12% has been burned and the remaining 79% has ended up in landfills or the environment.
Inside the Garbage Patches
Ocean currents gather visible debris. Based on the calculations, at least 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic—weighing nearly 269,000 tons—are currently bobbing around in the ocean. The pollution spans about 610,000 square miles, and the plastic debris contained there weighs an estimated 79,000 metric tons. Smaller particles are harder to see. New research suggests 27 million metric tons of nanoplastics are spread across just the top layer of the North Atlantic. Nanoplastics make up the dominant fraction of marine plastic pollution.
How Plastic Enters the Sea
Stopping leakage begins on land. Plastic can enter the marine environment in a variety of ways, including limited resources for disposing of trash, improper trash collection, littering, or through stormwater runoff. Plastic doesn’t degrade or break down like other materials do. Policy must address the whole system. The National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution provides an ambitious approach to reduce and recover plastics and other materials, as well as prevent plastic pollution from harming human health and the environment. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development projects that, without interventions, global plastic use and waste will almost triple by 2060.
The Toll on Marine Life
Wildlife bears the clearest burden. Marine species ingest or are entangled by plastic debris, which causes severe injuries and death. As this crisis spreads to every corner of the globe, WWF is leading the charge to help reimagine how we reduce, source, design, and reuse the plastic materials that communities depend upon.
Cleanup and Prevention
Volunteers remove what they can. Ocean Conservancy has led the fight for a clean, healthy ocean free of plastics since 1986, when the U.S.-based nonprofit launched its annual International Coastal Cleanup. In 2024 we set a new record with volunteers picking up and recording a total of 17,820,206 items ranging from candy wrappers and cigarette butts to plastic bags and bottle caps. Cleanup alone is insufficient. In 2020, The Pew Charitable Trusts and Systemiq published a groundbreaking report, Breaking the Plastic Wave, amid significant data gaps on plastic pollution, substantial debate over the scale of the plastic pollution problem and various proposals to meet the challenge. Global efforts to address these and other risks of plastic and plastic pollution have not been enough, and the scale of the challenge remains significant. Systemic change is the common conclusion. As plastic pollution is a transboundary issue, a global plastics treaty is needed to ambitiously reduce plastic production, phase out harmful subsidies, eliminate products and chemicals of concern, and adopt strong national plans and rigorous reporting and compliance mechanisms.