Scientific Information for Parents and Teachers

  • 46 percent of the trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is from ghost nets, crab pots, fish traps, buoys, and other fishing gears.
    Source: Dr. George Leonard, Ocean Conservancy’s Chief Scientist

  • 52 percent of sea turtles worldwide have accidentally eaten plastics in the ocean. They thought plastic bags were jellyfish.                                                            
    Source: The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

  • 8 million tons of plastic trash enter the ocean every year. This is like dropping one garbage truck full of plastic trash into the ocean every minute or throwing two Empire State Buildings filled with plastics into the ocean every month.
    Source: National Geographic Kids

1.     Where does all this plastic in the ocean come from?

  • People littering.

  • Improper disposal of trash in towns and cities.

  • Old, broken fishing gear left as trash or lost in the ocean by commercial fishing boats. This makes up over 46 percent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

2.     How does domestic plastic get into rivers or oceans?

  • Rain and wind can sweep plastic items into nearby storm drains. From there, they flow into rivers, and from there, into oceans. Plastics can also block city storm drain systems and cause floods.

3.     How do we become Eco Heroes and help save marine animals and reduce plastics in the oceans?

  • Never throw plastic items out from car windows or leave plastic trash at public areas, such as schools, parks, lakes, beaches, or at events such as music festivals, sports events, or any outdoor activities or gatherings. Dispose of them in proper bins or take them home. Invite others to do the same. This simple action alone can help save thousands of marine animals and birds, such as sea turtles, dolphins, whales, seals, sea birds, and more.

  • Choose reusable, refillable, or biodegradable containers to reduce the use of plastics.

  • Buy washing machines with special filters that can catch loose fibers and plastics. Our clothes shed tiny microfibers - synthetic yarns in our clothes - which go down the drain and end up in our waterways when we do laundry. 

Robots for Good

Robots are often made to do jobs that are too hard, difficult, or dangerous for humans to do, such as firefighting or cleaning up oil spills and plastic trash in the oceans.

One example of a plastic cleaning robot is the Interceptor, created by a non-governmental organization (NGO) called Ocean Cleanup. The Interceptor is an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) that collects plastics at the mouth of rivers before they get into the ocean.

The Ocean Cleanup team also collects trash from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch using a system called “Wilson.” Their goal is to try to clean an area equivalent to 500,000 soccer fields.

The team collects and recycles ocean plastics and ghost nets and turns them into cool sunglasses.