Every year, an estimated 8 million to 12 million metric tons of plastics enter the ocean on top of the estimated 150 million metric tons already in our marine environments, according to the Ocean Conservancy. Incredibly, trash has reached the stomachs of some of the deepest fish in the ocean, with researchers estimating 73 percent of deepwater fish in the North Atlantic Ocean had eaten particles of plastic, known as microplastics. And it’s not just fish or marine life that’s affected says Rolf Halden, a professor of environmental health engineering at Arizona State University. Every human being in the developed world has traces of plastic constituents in his or her blood.

See also: Ocean Cleanup steams out to sea in test run to clean Great Pacific Garbage Patch, WHAS ABC News – San Francisco, September 7