Six Ways Plastic Ends Up In Our Oceans

Photo by Cristian Palmer on Unsplash

I frequently get asked “but how does plastic end up in our oceans in the first place?”

This is usually the question I would receive after (forcefully) raising the topic of plastic pollution with colleagues, friends and family.

I can’t help it.

I absolutely love the sea and hate to see what plastic is doing to it. So with the recent spike in media coverage on the plastic pandemic that’s damaging our oceans and killing over 1,000,000 sea birds and 100,000 marine animals each year, I’ve become an advocate for keeping our oceans blue and clean.

I even launched Lovers of The Sea, an online brand that raises awareness about the topic and helps people reduce their plastic footprint.

And while my knowledge and understanding of plastic pollution has grown, I find that a lot of people are unaware of how plastic actually ends up in our oceans. In fact, I genuinely did not, until I dug deeper and picked-up a copy of Lucy Siegle’s Turning The Tide on Plastic.

So here it is, the six ways in which plastic ends up in our oceans:

1. Littering on Land. An estimated 80% of marine litter comes from land. Basically, any plastic waste that isn’t properly deposited on land can be whipped up by the wind and rain and will travel in a seaward direction…