Plastic Pollution in the Oceans

Plastic is one of the most useful materials available today. It is lightweight, sturdy and inexpensive, and thus can be found in everything from food packaging to medical equipment. However, once discarded, plastic is a serious and persistent environmental issue, due to the same properties. Uncollected waste may be blown and washed by wind and water to rivers and coasts and then to the sea. Plastic pollution is now a worldwide issue impacting waters, wildlife and the agendas of governments worldwide. This essay uses work by Cottom et al. (2024), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2024) and Murphy et al. (2025) to argue that plastic pollution in the oceans is an emerging issue, which can be deadly to marine life, and the best solutions are those that prevent the plastic from reaching the oceans.

The problem begins on land. Cottom et al. (2024) developed a global inventory of macroplastic pollution and estimated that approximately 52.1 million metric tons of plastic waste were emitted into the environment in 2020. This figure counts all plastic waste released into the environment, including waste burned in the open, not the amount that reaches the ocean, which the study does not estimate. They estimate that around 57 percent of this material is open burned and 43 percent is unburned debris (Cottom et al., 2024). The researchers also determined that the causes vary from region to region. In the Global North, the largest source of plastic emissions is littering, while in the Global South the largest source of emissions is uncollected waste. This discovery indicates that there is no single behavior that can explain the cause of the crisis. Careless disposal is a major issue in wealthier countries, while in many other countries, waste is not picked up at all. If it is not collected, plastic is discarded, burned in the open or blown and washed into waterways.

As years progress, the scope of the challenge will probably expand. Based on OECD (2024), plastics production and use are projected to increase by 70% by 2040, without the application of more ambitious policies regarding production, use and waste. The flow of mismanaged plastic waste, meaning plastic dumped, poorly disposed of, or littered, is projected to increase by almost 50% from 81 million metric tons in 2020 to 119 million in 2040, with leakage into rivers, oceans and land also projected to increase, at a similar rate, from 20 million to 30 million metric tons a year. The forecasts are significant because they suggest the existing policies are still failing to turn around the trend. Even with the improvements in waste systems, plastic waste itself will not decrease, unless there is a decrease in production. For the oceans, this means plastic pollution in coastal and marine ecosystems will continue to increase, if no action is taken. Thus, lack of action leads to higher environmental and economic expenses.

Waste plastic is extremely harmful to animals when it gets to the ocean. According to Murphy et al. (2025), plastic ingestion has been reported in almost 1,300 species of marine life, representing all seabird families, marine mammal families and sea turtle species. The authors analyzed data from over 10,000 necropsies of seabirds, marine mammals, and sea turtles, drawn from published studies and stranding databases, to gauge the dangers of ingested plastic. Their models estimated that, among the animals studied, between 6 and 405 pieces of ingested macroplastic were associated with a 90% chance of death, depending on the type of plastic and the animal group. The effects may be fatal even with minimal exposure. For seabirds, only 23 pieces of plastic, or 6 pieces of rubber, were associated with a 90 percent probability of death. Importantly, the study was conducted only on deaths from injury or obstruction of the digestive tract. It did not include entanglement or long-term damage, so did not account for the long-term effects of plastic on wildlife.

All these studies together suggest a direction of prevention. As per the OECD (2024), policies implemented across the complete plastics lifecycle (curbing production and demand, designing for circularity, enhancing recycling and closing leakage pathways) could result in the reduction of plastic leakage into the environment by 96% by 2040, compared with business as usual. The leakage reduction that could be achieved with only waste management and recycling would be only 55% in comparison. This comparison shows that it is not sufficient to improve collection and recycling alone. In the meantime, the findings of Cottom et al. (2024) highlight why solutions should fit local conditions. It is crucial to increase collection services, particularly in areas where waste currently goes uncollected, and to minimize litter and single-use products in more affluent areas. Governments have an opportunity to support these efforts through improving waste infrastructure and limiting the use of single-use plastics, while individuals also have opportunities to reduce the usage of single-use plastics and encourage governments to do the same.

To summarize, plastic pollution is not simply a local issue but a worldwide one, affecting all oceans in the world. If nothing changes, it is estimated that the amount of plastic waste released into the environment will increase by half, from about 20 million to 30 million metric tons a year by 2040 (OECD, 2024). Hence, the most effective way to deal with this problem is to reduce the amount of plastic created in the first place. It also requires better waste collection. All three studies support this conclusion in different ways. Otherwise, the oceans would suffer from a waste that was never intended to go into disposal.