Eli5 How is so much trash getting in the ocean?
In: 2
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
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