Eli5 How is so much trash getting in the ocean?
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Most of it is carried in by badly polluted rivers in Southeast Asia. A smaller percentage is fishing gear and other debris from fishing vessels.
These countries don’t necessarily generate that much plastic waste, but they do a terrible job of managing it and landfilling it so it ends up in the ocean.
Also, there are many ships that simply dump their trash in the ocean.
They are also accidents that aren’t properly cleaned up.
In some places, the rivers themselves are polluted and all of that trash flows out into the ocean. It is hard to convince people to not litter when their river looks and smells like a sewer. Tourist cities like Venice are a great place to start reading more about this.
There may also be economic hardships, like in cities that are extremely poor or do not have proper waste management or even plumbing/sanitation. If you would like to find out more about this, you can read up on Bill Gates project to create a toilet for third world countries that does not need plumbing.
Ever seen a plastic bag tumble away in the wind? It’ll keep tumbling until it gets caught something or it gets waterlogged. If it gets waterlogged, it’ll still float, so if it enters a waterway, chances are good it’ll eventually end up in the ocean. And even if it gets caught, chances are it’ll eventually break down until bits of it come loose and can get into the water.
Also if there’s flooding, everything plastic will float away with the flood waters. So will wood, but unlike plastic, it soon rots away.
Mostly from rivers, especially in places that don’t have proper waste management set up. When cities are too remote to have proper landfills and waste collection, or areas are just too poor to provide such a municipal service, a lot of people end up throwing waste into nearby rivers. In a way it’s hard to blame them, that’s the only mechanism that will easily carry waste away from their community since there are no garbage trucks. But there’s also places where people just don’t care about the environment as much as The West does and lots of garbage gets thrown out on the ground just because. And then wind and storms eventually carry it all into rivers, and the rivers carry it to the ocean. [Here’s a river in the Congo](https://www.phnompenhpost.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_780x440/public/field/image/plastic_bottles_completely_cover_the_water_line_on_the_kalamu_river_which_runs_through_the_centre_of_kinshasa._afp.jpg?itok=TAlNGaE3). Literally a continuous layer of plastic waste on top, and it’s flowing like this right into the ocean. Here’s a [river in Manila](https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/2018/athicklayero.jpg). There’s hundreds of rivers like this, 24/7 conveyor belts of trash right into the ocean.
Here’s articles about your exact question with a little more detail if you’re interested:
[https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/24/health/plastic-pollution-rivers-oceans-scn-intl/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/24/health/plastic-pollution-rivers-oceans-scn-intl/index.html)
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/heres-where-oceans-trash-comes
A lot of it is discarded fishing gear, much of the rest comes from rivers in the developing world, often when the area floods in heavy rain everything gets into the river and eventually ends up in the ocean.
It’s cheaper to dump trash in the ocean or rivers than process it, so if it’s legal or the illegality isn’t enforced, most companies and individuals do that to save money.
This is especially a problem in non-western countries and in ships because they don’t have strong environmental regulation.
For a long time, countries like the US have been selling their plastic waste to countries in Asia, mainly China, for recycling. Plastics recycling is a very costly process with a very small profit margin. It gets shipped across the Pacific and often gets dumped in the ocean on the way, whether accidentally or on purpose. China stopped accepting foreign plastic for recycling a few years ago, so I couldn’t say how much this still happens. But all ecosystem services are connected and everything eventually finds its way to the ocean with time, no matter where you dispose of it.
All rivers flow to the ocean. Prior to landfills and public sanitation, your trash just went in the river and it was carried away and not your problem anymore.
That’s still how waste management works in a lot of the world.
Even in the first world companies get fined for dumping waste in rivers pretty regularly. Because quite frankly it’s cheaper than doing it properly. On that note, NEVER do anything on the Hudson river. It is so polluted that eating a fish from it is a valid reason to go to the hospital.
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