Plastic can be really helpful. For example, we wear helmets made of plastic that protect us when we ride bikes or play sports. Plastic also has helped doctors create important tools that save lives. It has even made travelling to space possible. 

But when plastic is thrown away carelessly, it doesn’t just disappear. 

Floating plastic becomes brittle in sunlight and then slowly breaks up into ever-smaller pieces as it is churned up by waves.  It can take hundreds of years to break down while it’s sitting in the environment. 

A bottle can take 450 years to break down, while a plastic fishing line could last for 600 years.

So if Christopher Columbus had tossed some plastic overboard on his way to discover America in 1492, there would still be fragments floating around the ocean today 

Many scientists believe plastic never completely disappears - particularly if it's submerged in deep or cold water.

Plastic pollution is a big problem that happens when plastic items get into our environment and build up over time. These plastic pieces can harm people, animals, and the places they live.

When people throw their plastic trash into a trashcan. The plastic is most likely to go to a landfill. In the landfill, the plastic can get blown away by the wind, ending up in a river. And since the river leads to the ocean, that plastic will end up in the ocean. It will be broken down by harsh waves, and slowly decompose over time. But plastic doesn't just biodegrade, it leaves behind tiny plastic particles, that can harm sea creatures and sea life. It's called microplastics, which are tiny plastic particles that are roughly 5mm, or 0.5 cm.

 Even if you live far from the coast, the plastic you throw away could still pollute the ocean. The main source of ocean plastic pollution is land-based—80% of plastic in the ocean originates on land. 

Most of the plastic in our world is made out of single-use plastic products such as plastic bottles, cigarette butts, plastic cups, and plastic straws.Moreover, the the main challenges are the lack of public awareness and the vast number of single-use plastics. 

Domestically, Indonesia’s plastic production and consumption patterns, combined with limited solutions, make the problem bigger.An estimated 10 billion plastic bags are thrown away in Indonesia every year, counting to a staggering 85,000 tonnes of waste.

There are three main ways plastic ends up in the oceans:

1. Throwing plastic in the bin when it could be recycled

The plastic you throw in the bin ends up in a landfill. When trash is being transported to a landfill, plastic is often blown away by winds because it’s so light. From there, it can eventually clutter around drains and enter the ocean this way. Even if it arrives in landfills, plastic is still at risk of being blown away.

2. Littering

Trash dropped on the street doesn’t stay there. Rainwater and wind carry litter into streams and rivers and through drains. Drains lead to the ocean!

People on vacation visiting beaches sometimes leave behind their bottles, cans, food packaging and cigarette butts in the sand. Tides can wash these randomly discarded waste into the ocean.

Careless and improper waste disposal is also a big contributor – illegal dumping of waste adds greatly to the plastic surge in our seas.

Globally, the practice of directly dumping trash into oceans, rivers and along beaches remains common.

3. Products that go down the drain

Many of the products we use daily are flushed down toilets, including wet wipes, cotton buds, tissue paper, and sanitary products. 

Microfibers are released into waterways when we wash our clothes in the washing machine. They're too small to be filtered out by sewage processing plants and end up being consumed by small marine species, ending up in our food chain. 

Tiny pieces of plastic known as microbeads have been added to all sorts of personal care and cosmetic products that are washed directly down the drain – from face scrubs to shower gels to toothpaste. As many of these microbeads are too small to be filtered out by wastewater plants, these plastic pieces remain in water that may end up flowing into the ocean