10 Ocean Plastic Pollution Facts

1. At least 100 million marine animals die each year from plastic waste alone.

2. At least 100,000 marine animals die from getting entangled in plastic yearly – this is just the creatures we find!

3. 1 in 3 marine mammal species get found entangled in litter, 12-14,000 tons of plastic are ingested by North Pacific fish yearly.

4. In the past 10 years, we’ve made more plastic than the last century. By 2050, the pollution of fish will be outnumbered by our dumped plastic.

5. The largest trash site on the planet is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, twice the surface area of Texas and growing each year, it outnumbers sea life there 6 to 1.

6. 300 Million tons of plastic gets created yearly, and this weighs the same as the entire human population, and 50% is single-use only.

7. There are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic waste estimated to be in our oceans. 269,000 tons float, 4 billion microfibers per km² dwell below the surface.

8. Fishing nets make up 86 percent of the large plastics in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Fishing equipment makes up more than 85 percent of the plastic pollution on sea mounts, ocean ridges and the sea floor.

9. On top of this 8.3 million tons are discarded in the sea yearly. Of which, 236,000 are ingestible microplastics that marine creatures mistake for food.

Image shows microplastic particles in a tiny baby fish

10. 500 marine locations are now recorded as dead zones globally, currently the size of the United Kingdom’s surface. These dead zones are a toxic cocktail of agriculture runoff from slurry, pesticides, fertilizers, plastic and rotting marine life.

11. What can we do about this?

Ditch single use plastic and go vegan. Do not support the needless destruction of all marine life. Look at what you buy and what you throw away. There is no place on earth called Away.

#Veganuary @veganuary http://veganuary.com 

Please listen and let's all do everything we can to make a difference.