Two Times Texas the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and "There Ain't No Ocean Deep Enough"!

So the largest of 5 ocean garbage patches is twice the size of Texas, and fish that dwell at 2,000 feet in the ocean are filling up on plastic.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/03/22/great-pacific-garbage-patch-grows/446405002/

“Researchers said 73% of deepwater fish in the North Atlantic Ocean had eaten particles of plastic, known as microplastics. This is among the highest percentages ever found in fish on Earth, according to a study released this week.” Even if something is not directly killing a wild animal, but it is a stressor that reduces the fitness of the animal then there is a high probability it will result in the death of that animal.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/02/21/ocean-pollution-plastic-found-73-percent-deepwater-fish-north-atlantic/359174002/

Humans have produced 18.2 trillion pounds of plastic since the 50s. That’s equal in size to 1 billion elephants.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2017/07/19/humans-have-produced-18-2-trillion-pounds-plastic-thats-equal-size-1-billion-elephants/491529001/

I recycle every piece of plastic I can but the bread bag and meat container I just tossed in the garbage aren’t recyclable to my knowledge.

Yeah, it’s a huge and growing problem.

Why are large ships allowed to dump everything in the sea?

@PaddleDog52 said:
Why are large ships allowed to dump everything in the sea?

I don’t know why. however given the billions of people on land that are never at sea I suspect what ships dump is a small fraction of the plastic problem in the oceans. I am not justifying the practice, but the much bigger problem is the plastics washing in from land like sediment in a river.

So researchers at Duke have found that some corals actually start to like the taste of some plastics. They call it “plastic junk food for coral”!

http://www.dw.com/en/plastic-is-junk-food-for-coral/a-41120453