Plastic trash in the oceans continues to surge

Volunteers collect plastic waste that washed up on the shores and mangroves of Freedom Island as they mark International Coastal Clean-up Day on Sept. 15, 2023 in Las Pinas, Metro Manila, Philippines. The Philippines remains one of the largest ocean polluters in the world, contributing a third of the 80% of global ocean plastic that comes from Asian rivers, according to a 2021 report by Oxford University's Our World in Data. Poverty has led the Philippines to become a "sachet economy" that consumes 163 million sachets every day, worsening marine plastic pollution in the region. The trash is piling up on land, clogging coastlines, spilling into the sea, and traveling to remote corners of the globe, as the country fails to meet targets for improved waste management that it signed into law more than two decades ago.

A plastic bag is photographed in the baltic sea near Korsholm as an illustration about plastic pollution in the arctic Ocean and North Atlantic ocean, on Dec. 4, 2021.

A staff member of the environmental organisation Sungai Watch holds the lids of PET plastic bottles collected by their river barriers and sorted for recycling, at one of their sorting centres in Beraban, Tabanan Regency district on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Dec. 22, 2023. The organization's trash barriers, collection, sorting and up-cycling system aim to stop the flow of plastic pollution from going into the ocean.

In this picture taken on Dec. 31, 2021 a plastic bag floats in the waters of the Indian ocean near the town of Ahangama in Galle.

Plastic trash scattered on the beach which was brought in by the strong wave during the northwest monsoon season at Jimbaran beach on Jan/ 27, 2021 in Jimbaran, Bali, Indonesia. In Bali, famed among tourists for its beaches and sunsets, the northwest monsoon brings a different kind of arrival - vast amounts of plastic waste. From December to March, so much trash washes up on the beaches that the local government struggles to keep up and clean up. Locals and workers have together been collecting 80 tonnes of waste a day as it washes ashore at world-famous beaches from Seminyak to Kuta, the local government said. Almost 75 percent of it is plastic, according to a study by the Center of Remote Sensing and Ocean Sciences at Bali's Udayana University.

Miguel Lacerda, 62, shows a plastic cup that traveled to Portugal from a beach bar in Florida at the coast near Sintra, Portugal May 22, 2019.

A plastic bottle washed up by the sea is seen at the Ao Phrao Beach, on the island of Ko Samet, Thailand June 10, 2018.

Kayakers try to collect a plastic box in the sea on May 30, 2019, during the Grand Defi or big challenge, the first competition in picking up waste in Marseille, France.

A swimmer collects a plastic bag in the sea on May 30, 2019, during the Grand Defi or big challenge, the first competition in picking up waste in Marseille, France.

A cleaning crew pick up debris, mostly plastic, on April 28, 2019, that swamped the Port of Durban in South Africa . Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) has commenced a major clean-up to remove the large volume of waste and vegetation from the port after the recent heavy rains and flooding.

South African students pick up plastic waste and debris during a beach cleanup of the inter-tidal zone of Dalebrook tidal pool in Kalk Bay, Cape Town, South Africa on May 4, 2019. The cleanup was organized by Oceano Reddentes, a South African Non-Profit Organization teaching ocean users to collect plastic to make ecobricks which are then used to build homes for the homeless.

A plastic Garfield phone sits on a beach in Le Conquet, France on March 30, 2019. A shipping container which feel off a ship in the 1980s, was found in a hidden sea cave causing Garfield phones to wash up on French beaches for the last 30 years.

Pieces of plastic, micro plastics and debris are seen in the ocean as a free diver collects plastic during the Big Ocean Clean Up in Hermanus, South Africa Jan. 26 2019.

Participants pick up plastic waste on Snow beach in Paynesville City, outside Monrovia, Liberia March 18, 2019.

A plastic bag in the Atlantic Ocean off the village of Ngor on the western most tip of Africa, Dakar, Senegal on Feb. 22, 2019.

A beach in the fishing village of Yenne Todd, Senegal on Feb. 25, 2019.

A Senegalese boy plays with a toy boat made from plastic waste on the polluted shoreline of the village of Ngor on the western most tip of Africa, Dakar, Senegal on Feb. 25, 2019.

Senegalese volunteers from the village of Ngor on the western most tip of Africa, Dakar, Senegal pick up trash on Feb. 22, 2019.

A man picks up plastic waste and debris from Dalebrook tidal pool during a beach clean up in Kalk Bay, Cape Town, South Africa on March 9, 2019.

A plastic bottle is seen coated in oil on Pensacola Beach as oil makes its way on shore from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on June 6, 2010 in Pensacola, Fla.

Plastic bags and other rubbish are collected from the waters of Manila Bay in the Philippines on July 3, 2014 during a campaign by environmental activists and volunteers calling for a ban of the use of plastic bags.

A seagull pecks at a plastic bag on Jan. 30, 2017 in Venice Beach, Calif.

Volunteers and divers collect garbage from the sea in Tamentfoust, Algeria on July 1, 2017.

Volunteers collect plastic rubbish and waste washed up on the beach near the University of Plymouth's Marine Station on August 8, 2017 in Plymouth, England.