Top three plastic pollution contributors:
| China | 8.7 |
| Indonesia | 3.2 |
| Philippines | 1.9 |
A young sperm whale, the largest toothed predator on Earth and an endangered species, washed up on the beach in south eastern Spain in February. Wanting to know what killed it, scientists brought the whale's 5 896 kg body to a lab for a necropsy. They sliced it open and were shocked when they discovered 29 kg of plastic in its stomach. This trash had caused the severe infection that took the whale's life.
Scientists across the globe are increasingly finding wildlife that has been killed after ingesting or becoming entangled in plastic. Ninety per cent of sea birds, for example, have been found to have plastic in their bellies. And the problem is only getting worse: The estimated 19 billion kg of plastic that ends up in the ocean every year is expected to double by 2025. These plastics will not only kill more animals; they will decimate coral reefs, and damage human health as micro plastics enter the food chain. They create more and larger dead zones where nothing can live, harm biodiversity and change ecosystems. There will likely be additional, unknown impacts; researchers have only been studying ocean plastics for less than two decades.