The amount of plastic particles in the ocean outnumber the amount of stars in the galaxy by 500 times

The story of how plastics became to succesful

Plastic a relatively new material invented sometime in the late 19th century, and actually it didn’t get its proper international breakthrough until the 1950s. Yet, by the year of 2015, mankind had produced 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic[1]. This itself is not that worrisome, but the fact that most of this plastic is not in use anymore should make you raise at least one of your eyebrows. A whole 75 percent – 6.3 billion tons of plastic – has already become waste. 12 percent of this waste has been incarcerated[2], while only 9 percent is recycled[3]. That leaves us with approx. 4.9 billion tons plastic waste either piled up on landfills or spread throughout nature; from our rivers to the world’s deepest ocean trench – most still completely unaccounted for[4]. From a pure economical point of view, this means that we are missing out on 480 – 720 billion euro in lost plastic material value.

And if that’s not reason enough to feel appealed, the physical consequences sure is.

Today, our oceans contain a total of 51 trillion plastic particles – outnumbering the number of stars in our galaxy by 500 times[5]. And it will be more. Every single year, around 8 million tons of plastic waste finds its way to the oceans. If that continues, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by the end of 2050.

Think about that for a second

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