Plastic is discharged from several different sources. 80% of the waste that ends in the ocean comes from land-based activities (landfills, industries, storm drains, tourism, untreated water waste) and the remaining 20% comes from ocean-based activities (cruise ships, ferries, fishing, container shipping, off-shore industries like oil and gas platforms).

In many ways plastic is an extremely durable and useful material. But it is often used just ONCE – single-use plastic – for example in packaging, plastic bags or single-use cups, after which quite a lot of it is discarded into nature, and damaging the wildlife and marine environment. This is happening both in Denmark and many other countries.

In the ocean, the sun and waves break down larger pieces of plastic into microplastic, but it doesn’t disappear completely. Therefore, we have to be very careful not to throw out plastic waste and to not leave even a single piece in the ocean and nature.

Plastic represents a great threat to many animal species. Many animals confuse pieces of plastic with food, so they end up eating it (both large and small pieces of plastic, depending on the size of the animal). Since plastic cannot be digested like normal food it inhibits the animals’ ability to eat real food and it can often lead the animal to die of starvation. Other animals die because they get wrapped up and stuck in plastic and cannot break free.

Plastic is connected to climate change in every stage: from the extraction of oil and gas for plastic, in the production phase and in the disposal stage. Furthermore, CO2 is emitted when plastic is broken down by the sun’s rays in nature. Currently a total of 6% of the global raw oil extraction is used for plastic, equaling the aviation sectors global usage. This number does not include the oil that is used afterwards in transportation, processing, handling and more.