“There are more than 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic in the oceans. That equates to 46,000 pieces per every square mile of ocean,” said Next Level Sailing, a company that specializes in whale watching and ocean viewing. The trash in the ocean surpasses even the billions and is still rising every year. This creates a major problem for marine life as trash causes major destruction and deadly environments where marine life can’t thrive. Marine life is not the only one in danger as sea pollution does come back to affect all of us on land. All the trash and potential viruses are being washed back to shores, piers, and even freshwater sources, which can lead to a massive illness. Therefore, what do we do to prevent such harm to our environment?

Well, many companies and non-profit organizations help by cleaning up shores and even spreading awareness about ocean pollution. However, some take it one step further by creating machinery that cleans up the ocean by collecting trash and dumping it in landfills. Some companies even manually pilot ships with a full crew in order to pick up trash and load it all back onto land. 

Recently, an ocean clean-up crew saw its largest extraction earlier this month by removing about 25,000 pounds of trash from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a massive pile of floating trash that is double the size of Texas. This group is now going back to the mainland with an estimated 50 pounds of trash. The clean-up crew’s dream is to get rid of the Garbage Patch and are confident that by late 2024, it will be gone or at the very least the size of a small city. 

This great achievement would allow marine life to gradually recover from the damage that human beings have inflicted upon them. It will allow both life in the ocean and on land to thrive again as it gets rid of threats to our precious seas and drinking water.