Products like cars and helmets are made to last, but many plastic products aren’t. Single-use plastics like cups, straws, sandwich bags, grocery bags, soda bottles, and yogurt cups are made to be used once and then thrown away.
Where does all that disposable plastic end up? About 20 percent of it gets recycled, most of it goes to garbage dumps, and the rest litters the ground, floats in rivers, or finds its way to the sea. At least 5 million tons of plastic ends up in the world’s oceans each year.
All that floating plastic is killing millions of animals every year. Fish, seabirds, and sea turtles get tangled in bags and strangled by plastic rings from six-packs of soda. One sea turtle was found with a plastic straw stuck in its nose.
Many sea creatures eat the plastic until the small pieces fill their stomachs. Then they get sick or lose the desire to eat real food. Last year, researchers found 80 plastic bags in the stomach of a pilot whale that died near Thailand, a country in Southeast Asia.