The World Is Facing a Huge Plastic Crisis in the Oceans

And experts say humanity’s plastic consumption will only grow over the next 20 years.

Transcript

00:00this is Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and while this is what some of their beaches look like this is

00:09what it's like on other parts of their coastline a veritable garbage dump of plastic as plastic is

00:14deposited into the oceans it never fully breaks down but it is broken up into small bits called

00:19microplastics these little bits can then be ingested by wildlife wreaking havoc on the

00:24animals and during a recent evaluation of areas around Brazil researchers say they are absolutely

00:29shocked at how much of this stuff is in their waters this is marine biologist Raquel Nevis her

00:35and her team have been diving and collecting sea creatures for autopsies and inside they have found

00:39some startling discoveries here's what she had to say about the situation I was frightened I knew I

00:44would find some microplastics but I never thought it would be this much that sample I showed you from

00:49the sea urchin is from a reference area that we thought to be clean that is our cleanest spot

00:53despite calls for the contrary single-use plastic consumption continues to increase expected to

00:59triple by 2040

01:00triple by 2040