MARINE AND OCEAN POLLUTION STATISTICS AND FACTS, 2020

Ultimate Roundup of Marine Pollution Facts: The Causes and Impact on both Marine and Human Life.

The ocean is one of the most unexplored parts of our planet, with a magnitude of undiscovered species and mysteries. It turns out from the studies conducted over the last few decades, this magnificent environment is under serious threat from human intervention, with plastics set to outnumber fish by 2050.   

Marine life, as we know it, is suffering irreparable damage from the chemical pollution of the waters and the millions of tons of mismanaged waste dumped in the oceans each year. The result is a planetary crisis with over 100 million marine animal’s lives get lost every year, and the decay of the ocean's ecosystem.   

Almost 1,000 species of marine animals get impacted by ocean pollution, and we now have over 500 locations recorded as dead zones where marine life cannot exist. How did this happen, what is causing the most damage, find out everything below in the marine pollution statistics roundup. 

Shocking Ocean Pollution Statistics:  

• 100 million marine animals die each year from plastic waste alone. 
• 100,000 marine animals die from getting entangled in plastic yearly – this is just the creatures we find! 
• 1 in 3 marine mammal species get found entangled in litter, 12-14,000 tons of plastic are ingested by North Pacific fish yearly. 
• In the past 10 years, we’ve made more plastic than the last century. By 2050, the pollution of fish will be outnumbered by our dumped plastic. 
• The largest trash site on the planet is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, twice the surface area of Texas, it outnumbers sea life there 6 to 1.
• China is ranked #1 for mismanaged waste and plastics. However, the US is in the top 20 with a more significant waste per person contributions.
• 300 Million tons of plastic gets created yearly, and this weighs the same as the entire human population, and 50% is single-use only. 
• There are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic waste estimated to be in our oceans.
• 269,000 tons float, 4 billion microfibers per km² dwell below the surface.
• 70% of our debris sinks into the ocean's ecosystem, 15% floats, and 15% lands on our beaches.
• In terms of plastic, 8.3 million tons are discarded in the sea yearly. Of which, 236,000 are ingestible microplastics that marine creatures mistake for food. 
• Plastics take 500-1000 years to degrade; currently 79% is sent to landfills or the ocean, while only 9% is recycled, and 12% gets incinerated. 
• 1950-1998 over 100 nuclear blast tests occurred in our oceans.
• 500 marine locations are now recorded as dead zones globally, currently the size of the United Kingdom’s surface (245,000 km²) 80% of global marine pollution comes from agriculture runoff, untreated sewage, discharge of nutrients and pesticides.
• 90% of the worldwide ocean debris comes from 10 rivers alone 

Which countries cause the most marine pollution? 

• China is ranked #1 for mismanaged waste and plastics; however, the US is in the top 20 with a more significant waste per person contributions.
•  50% of the world’s plastic gets manufactured in Asia, in China holds 18% of the world’s population, and 29% of this plastic gets created there. 

According to Statista’s ocean pollution by the country report. Back in 2010, China was responsible for 8.8M metric tons of waste that are considered ‘mismanaged.’ An estimated 3.53M metric tons of this ended up in our oceans. However, it’s important to note that China has the largest population on the planet since then China has set a target to have 35% of its plastic waste recycled by 2020.   

Other ocean pollution by country statistics from the same report show 3.2M tons of mismanaged waste and 1.29M ending up in the oceans from Indonesia, a country with 264 million population. In comparison, the United States has 327 million people living there with 0.11 million metric tons of waste entering the sea. Shockingly, at the time of the report in 2010, both China and Indonesia accounted for over a third of the planet's plastic waste, according to the Wall Street Journal.   

The ocean pollution statistics by country report comes from a team of researchers from Australia and the United States led by Jenna Jambeck. They went about to analyze the levels of plastic waste within the world’s oceans.   

Sources: BBC, National Geographic, Statista