171 trillion plastic particles now float on the world’s oceans
Surface plastic has risen sharply since 2005 and is mostly microplastic, according to 40 years of ocean sampling.
Schools and teachers
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People swallow and breathe in up to 121,000 microplastic particles a year
The first systematic estimate of human microplastic intake found tens of thousands of particles a year, far more for people who drink only bottled…
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The ‘credit card of plastic a week’ claim is wrong by about a million times
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)’s viral estimate that people ingest 5 grams of plastic a week was re-analysed and found to be roughly…
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World Health Organization (WHO): microplastic exposure is real, evidence of harm in humans is still limited
The World Health Organization’s cautious 2022 review says people are exposed to plastic particles but data on health effects remain scarce.
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Nine in ten seabirds have eaten plastic; 99% of species will by 2050
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) modelling of decades of seabird studies found plastic ingestion is global, pervasive and rising fast.
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A single piece of plastic gives a sea turtle a one-in-five chance of death
Post-mortem data from Queensland, Australia, show that eating just 14 pieces of plastic gives a turtle a 50% chance of dying.
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914 marine species are known to have swallowed or been tangled in plastic
The definitive species count for plastic ingestion and entanglement has more than tripled since 1997.
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‘Plasticosis’: the first disease named after plastic
Seabirds on Lord Howe Island develop scar tissue in their stomachs in proportion to how much plastic they have eaten.
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Plastic touching coral raises disease risk from 4% to 89%
A survey of 124,000 corals across the Asia-Pacific found plastic debris multiplies the chance of coral disease more than twenty-fold.
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More than 1,000 tonnes of microplastic rain down on US national parks each year
Microplastic falls with rain and dust even in the most remote protected areas of the western United States.