marine plastic pollution in asia

Plastic , both a good invention and disaster to our planet because of the way we use it. 

The world produce more than 300 million tons of plastic every year, Including billions of single use plastic such as plastic bottles. 

Only very few plastic that is produced is recycled, the rest ends up in our environment. and its affecting our lands and ocean like a disease. 

about 8 million metric tons of plastic trash enters the sea from land every year. 

across our ocean, plastic trash flows into circulation,, plastic thrown away in east Asia can make its way to Australia and the US 

and while its moving it keeps breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces ingested by species across the marine world  

and it also breaks down into tiny particles,  invisible to the naked eye, called micro plastics. In the past decade or so, scientists have started finding plastics and micro plastics in every part of the ocean they’ve visited.

And it sinks into the bottom of the sea. it can go so deep that in 2019 plastic bags were discovered in the Mariana Trench found at a depth of 36,000 ft. 

High-income countries tend to generate more plastic waste per person, But while those countries usually have well-managed waste streams and therefore lower levels of plastic pollution to external environments, plastic waste still enters rivers and oceans, especially from coastal populations

the asian region is what produce plastic waste the most with china on top

In 2010, 8.8 million metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste came from China with an estimated 3.53 million metric tons of it ending up in the ocean. A total of 3.2 million metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste came from Indonesia and it is estimated that 1.29 million metric tons became plastic marine debris. The United States is also guilty of polluting oceans with plastic, but at a much lower level than China. Annually, 0.11 million metric tons of  plastic garbage comes from the United States.

this is a matter that will affect everyone in the near future if we keep doing the same thing 

In order to solve plastic problem we need to effectively rethink the entire system. from one that make plastic, use them and dispose them.

to one where it can be recovered and fed back to the economy as valuable plastic material. The goal is to create an economy that plastics never becomes waste.