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Plastic has become ubiquitous on store shelves and in our homes. From wrapped food and disposable bottles to microbeads in body soaps, it is widely used as packaging or in products because it is versatile, cheap, and convenient. But this convenience comes at a price. Plastic debris enters the ocean at a rate of approximately 11 million metric tons per year, where it damages marine life and damages habitats.
How do we get here? We have been producing large quantities of plastic products and have had few measures to regulate their use or properly manage their disposal.
"Breaking the Plastic Wave", a global analysis using world-class models, shows that we can reduce annual plastic flows to the ocean by approximately 80% in the next 20 years by applying existing solutions and technologies. No single solution can achieve this goal; rather, we break the plastic wave only by taking immediate, ambitious and concerted actions.
