The Pacific Ocean is home to a garbage patch that covers an area twice the size of Texas. According to The Ocean Cleanup organization, in this one garbage patch, there is an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic. That is about 250 pieces of plastic for every human that lives on Earth. Garbage and plastic in the Ocean is hurting its ecosystem; causing damage to both plant and animal species. As a direct result of human waste, animals are suffering and dying. Many people around the world rely on marine life as a source of food and this is endangered by the waste we are putting in their environment.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated that 8 million metric tons of plastic enter the ocean every year. To put that in perspective, that is equivalent in weight to 470,588 fully loaded school busses. The average American life expectancy is 78.69 years. This means that in an average American’s life, at the current rate, a whopping 629,520,000 tons of plastic will enter the ocean. Animals mistake pieces of plastic for food so now plastic is found inside of the body of almost every bird, most fish, sea turtles, and whales. Our dependence on plastic must end or humanity will be responsible for the extinction of millions more species than we already are. In 2016 The Independent warned that the current amount of waste in the ocean will increase by tenfold by 2020.