Very Alarming!By 2050 the ocean will contain more plastic by weight than fish!

It is estimated that by 2050 the ocean will contain more plastic by weight than fish. The plastic that finds its way into the oceans inevitably will pose a risk of ingestion by sea birds, fish, marine mammals, etc. It’s not uncommon to see articles of sea life found dead with significant amounts of plastic in their stomach.

While these impacts may seem individualized and uncorrelated with the sushi you eat at your local sushi shop, they are not. Recent studies point to increasing amounts of plastic within the seafood you and I eat on a regular basis. A recent study by Ghent University in Belgium, for example, found that people who regularly eat seafood ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic each year. Another study by Plymouth University found that one-third of all fish caught in the UK contained tiny pieces of plastic.

A tool developed on Plastic Drift shows you where plastic is likely to end up in the oceans when the user chooses an initiation point. This drives home the global impact of a coke bottle leaving the shores of New York on western Europe and Africa.