” Did you know 5 trillion pieces of plastic currently litter the ocean ?”
Trash accumulates in 5 ocean garbage patches, the largest one being the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between Hawaii and California. If left to circulate, the plastic will impact our ecosystems, health and economies. Solving it requires a combination of closing the source, and cleaning up what has already accumulated in the ocean.
Ocean Clean-Up is the largest clean-up in history developing advanced technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. A full-scale deployment of our systems is estimated to clean up 50 % of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch every 5 years.
You can DONATE to the clean-up campaign here
Right now an estimated 12.7 million tonnes of plastic – everything from plastic bottles and bags to microbeads – end up in our oceans each year. Travelling on ocean currents this plastic is now turning up in every corner of our planet – from Cornish beaches, to uninhabited Pacific islands. It is even being found trapped in Arctic ice.
Our oceans are slowly turning into a plastic soup and the effects on ocean life are chilling. Big pieces of plastic are choking and entangling turtles and seabirds and tiny pieces are clogging the stomachs of creatures who mistake it for food, from tiny zooplankton to whales. Plastic is now entering every level of the ocean food chain and even ending up in the seafood on our plates ( and in our bodies).
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Greenpeace is campaigning to end the flow of plastic into our oceans.
See how you can get involved and support this campaign here.
Marine Conservation Society is the UK’s leading charity for the protection of our seas, shores and wildlife. For over thirty years MCS has been the voice for the sea for all the fascinating creatures that live beneath the waves, for our breath-taking coastal environment, for all those who make a sustainable living from the sea and for everyone who simply enjoys visiting the beach and our glorious coastline.
If you would like, you can do your bit by getting involved in one of their many campaigns
Surfers Against Sewage is a passionate, practical-minded movement of people just like you. People who love the ocean, the coastline where they walk the dog, the rock pools they played in on holiday, their favourite surf break….
If you want to protect our coastline you can get involved in one of SASs campaigns here.