One of the saddest facts concerning plastic pollution in our oceans and rivers is that many marine organisms simply can’t tell the difference between plastic and food. These animals then fills their stomachs with indigestible plastic and thus starve to death suffering to unending hunger because they cannot eat. 92% of all marine life which encounters ocean debris is exposed to plastic and 10% of these ingest the plastic.

Both entanglement with plastic debris and the ingestion of plastic and microplastic wreak widespread havoc on the ecosystem.

Shocking Death Statistics

With the weight of plastic soon rising to match the total weight of all marine life in the ocean by 2050, death statics due to marine plastic exposure is shocking beyond words. To give you rough idea of the widespread fatalities plastic pollution causes, here are a few metrics behind the murder:

It has been determined that approximately 100 MILLION marine animals are killed by plastics during the course of each year.

34% of all dead leatherback sea turtles are found to have ingested plastic due to the way that plastic bags resemble jellyfish causing in excess of 1,000 deaths per year.