More plastic than fish by 2050: worldwide plastic use increased 20x in 50 yrs, 8 million tons dumped into oceans every minute

Only 5% of plastic waste is effectively recycled, at plants like this one in Indonesia.

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Washington Post - By 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans, study says
If we keep producing (and failing to properly dispose of) plastics at predicted rates, plastics in the ocean will outweigh fish pound for pound in 2050, the nonprofit foundation said in a report Tuesday.

According to the report, worldwide use of plastic has increased 20-fold in the past 50 years, and it is expected to double again in the next 20 years. By 2050, we’ll be making more than three times as much plastic stuff as we did in 2014.

Guardian UK - One refuse truck’s-worth of plastic is dumped into the sea every minute, and the situation is getting worse
According to a new Ellen MacArthur Foundation report launched at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday, new plastics will consume 20% of all oil production within 35 years, up from an estimated 5% today.

Plastics production has increased twentyfold since 1964, reaching 311m tonnes in 2014, the report says. It is expected to double again in the next 20 years and almost quadruple by 2050.

Despite the growing demand, just 5% of plastics are recycled effectively, while 40% end up in landfill and a third in fragile ecosystems such as the world’s oceans.

Much of the remainder is burned, generating energy, but causing more fossil fuels to be consumed in order to make new plastic bags, cups, tubs and consumer devices demanded by the economy.

newstarget.com - 8 MILLION tons of plastic dumped into the world’s oceans every minute
At the current rate, by 2050 the world’s oceans just may contain more plastic bottles than fish due to the fact that 8 million tons are being dumped into oceans every single minute.
“In a business-as-usual scenario, the ocean is expected to contain 1 ton (1.1 tons) of plastic for every 3 tons of fish by 2025, and by 2050, more plastics than fish (by weight),” the report noted.

EcoWatch - 80% of Ocean Plastic Comes From Land-Based Sources, New Report Finds
Ocean plastic pollution is an increasingly devastating crisis, and this new infographic shows exactly where the plastic trash is coming from, where it ends up and why it's important to start our fight against this environmental scourge at the beach.

The firm calculated that emissions of microplastics range from 0.5 to 1.4 million tonnes per year, with a mid-point estimate of 0.95 million tonnes. Vehicle tires are the biggest culprits, releasing 270 thousand tonnes of debris into our waterways annually.

These tiny non-biodegradable pieces of plastic are a cause for worry, as they are being gobbled up by plankton and baby fish like junk food, and works its way up the food chain. Microplastics have been found in in ice cores, across the seafloor, vertically throughout the ocean and on every beach worldwide. As EcoWatch mentioned previously, microplastics are also very absorbent, meaning they pick up the chemicals it floats in.

The firm compiled a report of their research that was released earlier this month. The report shows an astounding 94 percent of the plastic that enters the ocean ends up on the ocean floor, with an estimated 70 kilograms of plastic per square kilometer of sea bed on average.

Skip the plastic, save a fish. Texas-sized ocean garbage vortex found in Pacific, plastic sea trash doesn't biodegrade

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Image courtesy Eunomia Research & Consulting, Tamara Thoreson Pierce / Ocean Conservancy / AP, Hotli Simanjuntak / EPA, and Ellen MacArthur Foundation