How big is the plastic problem in the ocean? Last year a whale washed up on shore in Norway and had to be euthanized. A necropsy revealed he’d had nothing to eat but plastic for quite some time and had been starving to death from lack of nutritious foods. But what if you don’t care about whales? Turns out the problem still affects you.
In about 30 years there will be more pounds of plastic in the ocean than there will be pounds of fish. Who cares, right? Well none of that fish is going to be edible because it will be full of plastic as well. Hopefully this is starting to sound like a problem?
Already microplastics are working their way into the food chain. These plastics come from things like microbeads and glitter, but they also come from those large pieces of plastic floating around in the ocean being broken down into smaller pieces through friction, UV light, and more. Then fish consume them and other fish consume those fish and so on until that plastic makes it way on to your dinner plate.
Learn more about the problem of plastic in the ocean from this infographic!
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