How does so much plastic end up in our oceans?
Our oceans are drowning in plastic. Billions of pounds of plastic currently float in our oceans around the globe. A plastic bag was even found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of our ocean. For those of you that don’t even live near an ocean, you might be thinking that your trash can’t possibly make it all the way to the ocean. Well, it can. Here’s how.
It all starts in your neighborhood. If your community doesn’t have volunteers regularly picking up trash, there’s probably a lot of garbage like plastic bottles and takeout containers on the side of the road. That trash was probably thrown there by careless individuals or blown there by uncovered dumpsters and trash cans.
If you look more closely at a suburban street, you will probably see drains on the side of the road. These are called storm drains. In a lot of cities, the water that goes down these drains isn’t treated like the water that goes down our sinks or flushes down our toilets. The water will flow down the drain into pipes and flow straight into your local creeks and streams.
Every time it rains, a lot of trash from the street, such as straws, plastic bags, and cups, get washed down the drain. All your creeks and streams are part of what is called a watershed. This means that everything flows downstream into the biggest body of…
