[Big chunks of marine waste. Photo credit: Shi-hyoung Lee]

From March 11th to March 13th, experts from over 80 different countries participated in the eleventh annual World Ocean Summit, held in Lisbon, Portugal.

The World Ocean Summit is a conference to reflect on marine pollution, as well as to discuss effective solutions for a sustainable ocean economy.

More than 200 speakers gave a speech at the summit, emphasizing the serious impacts of marine plastic on the ocean and potentially convincing partnerships and government members to help achieve the 14th UN Sustainable Development Goal, “Life Below Water”.

According to the summit, the amount of debris in the ocean has reached another shocking level.

An updated value of over 170 trillion pieces of marine waste, especially plastic, float around the world’s oceans, as various research insists.

In fact, approximately 10 to 12 million tons of trash are dumped into the ocean every year.

The rate of marine waste has rapidly increased in the past decade, since plastic became the main source of most everyday-used-materials.

Plastic takes up about 80% of the annual trash that is discarded into the ocean, with chemicals or agricultural waste taking up the other 20%.

The major problem of ocean plastic is, as most people acknowledge, its impact on marine creatures.

Over one million marine animals, such as fish, whales, and sea turtles, die from plastic waste.

A majority of these creatures confuse plastic bags or bottles as food, and try to swallow them.

Once plastic is ingested, it is impossible to be digested in the stomach, and is trapped in the creatures’ body, causing critical health problems.

In other cases, some marine creatures die from being entangled in marine waste.

Creatures with large fins, such as sea turtles, whales, or sharks, encounter a situation where their fins get stuck on plastic bags or nets, which greatly hinders their ability to swim.

With a lack of speed and movement, creatures are unable to capture their prey, which eventually leads to hunger and death.

For example, in a seashore in Bunbury, Australia, where many dolphins are seen, a mother dolphin sought help from a group of tourists to untangle the plastic net that was covering a baby dolphin’s mouth and fin.

Another major problem of plastic is that as time passes, the material breaks up and becomes micro plastic.

Micro plastics are very small plastic pieces that are less than 5 millimeters long.

These small chunks of marine waste are mixed with ocean water, and are almost impossible to see with one’s eyes.

Therefore, there is a much higher chance for sea creatures to ingest microplastics.

Although only a few pieces could barely cause a harmful impact, an accumulated amount of microplastics could cause a similar health problem as big plastic pieces do.

Furthermore, since various species of fish are used as ingredients for human meals, microplastics could also accumulate in a person’s body.

Microplastics could cause major health problems to humans not only because of accumulation in the body, but also because of the harmful chemicals they contain.

Acknowledging the major impacts of marine plastic waste, experts say that it is crucial for the world to plan and evaluate effective solutions to save the ocean’s environment.