From the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ between Hawaii and California, to waves of ‘trash carpets’ flowing into the Dominican Republic's Montesinos Beach, plastic is ruining our once-pristine waters
DISGUSTING photos show how plastic dumped into rivers and oceans around the globe is killing record numbers of sea creatures and destroying the world’s most beautiful beaches.
Eight million metric tonnes of single-use plastics clog up the world’s oceans each year, according to US environmental charity NRDC.
Even though most single-use plastics are sent to landfill, 80 per cent of them end up in our oceans via storms, drains and sewers, the organisation adds.
Single-use plastics are non-biodegradable items like water bottles, plastic bags and drinking straws.
"Trash carpets" blanketing the ocean are unfortunately not an uncommon site, such as the stomach-churning waves of rubbish that lap at the shores of Montesinos Beach in the Dominican Republic.
The once beautiful beach has recently had 1,000 tonnes of trash removed from its golden shores by environment activist group
The group, which campaigns for cleaner oceans, said: “Despite these efforts, more plastic arrives with the tides each day.
"Parley is working on a long-term plan for the Dominican Republic and will remain on the ground there.”
Meanwhile, the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world, dubbed the ‘’, is located between Hawaii and California.
The floating pile of plastic rubbish spans an area that in 2018 was already three-times the size of France, reports .
It said that "some 1.8trillion pieces of plastic weighing nearly 90,000 tonnes are currently floating in this area."
LADbible’s ‘Trash Isles’ campaign saw the social media site fight to get the Great Pacific Garbage Patch recognised as the world’s 19th nation in order to prompt action against the pollution.
Its details how ocean plastic will outweigh fish by 2050.
And in the Caribbean, more "trash islands" have also formed, with images showing miles of floating rubbish stretching to the horizon.
Microplastics are another dire consequence of the plastic rubbish that is overtaking our oceans.
defines the small but deadly plastics as “particles less than five millimetres in size that deteriorate from larger plastic pieces that have entered the oceans".
They’re similar to ‘microbeads’, tiny flecks of plastic that were frequently used in cosmetics like face wash and toothpaste that were banned in the UK in January 2018.
These microbeads first appeared in personal care products about 50 years ago.
The tiny particles easily pass through water filtration systems and end up in the ocean, which is harmful to aquatic life and pollute the sea itself.
Earlier this month a beach in Tenerife was overcome with the tiny shards of microplastic that had been washed ashore and formed lines of visible pollution along the beach.
A study on microplastics in estimates the particles create a combined 236 thousand tonnes of the plastic pollution currently clogging the world’s oceans.
Microplastics are ingested by aquatic wildlife, says National Geographic, having disastrous consequences on their ability to reproduce.
Ocean birds trapped in plastic bags, sea turtles trapped in fishing nets and a seahorse clutching a cotton bud were just some of the horrific images released by National Geographic in 2018.
details how one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed every day from ingesting plastic in the ocean.
Speaking to the an environmental engineering expert, Jenna Jambeck, said the amount of plastic that entered the ocean in 2010 alone equated to “five plastic grocery bags filled with plastic for every foot of coastline in the world".
Shockingly, it's estimated that by 2025, plastic in the ocean will equate to ten plastic bags per foot of coastline, she added.
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