By now, it is well known that the oceans swirl with plastic. More than 8m tonnes pour into the seas every year, spewed out via rivers, dumped along coastlines or abandoned by fishing vessels. Plastic even contaminates ocean air, where particles are kicked up by spray and then blown about the planet by the wind. In many places on Earth, it is literally raining – and snowing – plastic.
While most images of ocean pollution show plastic bottles bobbing on the surface or straws being yanked from turtles’ noses, these are misleading: bottles and straws make up only a fraction of the total.
