WHAT YOU PROBABLY DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT PLASTICS IN THE OCEANS…

What are the causes of pollution?

• The Earth is 70% covered by water, so people initially assumed that if they got rid of pollutants in the oceans, they would eventually „dilute“ and simply disappear. That didn't happen.
• An obvious reason is also the enormous production of plastics, which currently amounts to more than 400 million tons per year, while only about 9% of them are recycled. To put it in perspective, in the last 10 years we have produced more plastic than in the entire last century.

And what are the consequences?

• More than 1 million seabirds, 300 thousand dolphins and porpoises and 100 thousand marine mammals die annually due to ocean pollution.
• The smallest animals that are at the bottom of the food chain absorb the chemicals from the plastics as part of their food. Subsequently, when they are eaten by larger animals, the concentration of chemicals increases again. So, what does it look like at the top of the food chain? The animals that are at the top of it have contamination levels up to a million times greater than the contamination of the water they live in.
• More than 50% of turtles have consumed plastic in their lifetime.
• „Garbage patches“ are emerging. The largest of them is located in the Pacific Ocean, between California and Hawaii, and it is 32 times larger than Slovakia.

What does the future hold for us?

• The amount of plastic in the oceans is estimated to increase 10-fold in the next decade.
• This could lead to the fact that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish.

5 plastic products most commonly found in the oceans:

1. Cigarettes and cigarette filters
2. Food containers and packaging
3. Food containers and packaging
4. Plastic bags
5. Lids and covers