Plastic waste is not a side effect of modern life. It is the direct result of a production system built around lightness, short use, and low costs, where what happens at the end of a product’s life is often overlooked. Every year, more plastic leaks into the environment, adding to what is already there. Once plastic enters nature, it does not simply go away. It breaks into smaller and smaller pieces and remains in soils, rivers, and marine environments, affecting habitats and the species that depend on them. The problem is therefore global and cumulative.

This article looks at how large the plastic waste problem is today, why it keeps growing, and how prevention can be supported by verified recovery of marine waste and by intercepting materials before they reach the Ocean.

Production outpaces systems

Since the 1950s, plastics have grown exponentially. By 2016, annual plastic production reached ~396 million tonnes (Mt). More than half of all virgin plastic ever made was produced after 2000. Across the entire period to 2017, approximately 6,300 Mt of plastics had already become waste; 12% was incinerated, 9% recycled (and only a fraction more than once), while roughly four-fifths accumulated in landfills or the environment. Packaging is the single largest demand segment, close to 40% of plastic consumption; short product lifetimes in this segment translate quickly into waste.

Low prices and single-use designs shorten use to minutes or days, so items quickly become waste. Multi-layer packaging and some additives make sorting and recycling difficult. Collection and treatment capacity has expanded more slowly than plastic production. For these reasons, waste keeps rising even where per-capita consumption is stable.

Waste generation and leakage

In 2019, an estimated 6.1 Mt of plastic waste entered rivers, lakes and the Ocean. As of 2019, cumulative stocks were roughly 109 Mt stored in rivers and about 30 Mt already in the Ocean. Because transport through watersheds is slow, plastic accumulates upstream; these stocks will continue to fragment into microplastics and nanoplastics, increasing dispersion and recovery costs.

Most plastic reaches water because waste is mismanaged: open dumping, uncontrolled landfills and informal burning leave materials exposed to wind and rain. Short-lived products, especially packaging, account for most of this leakage. Once in rivers and canals, lighter pieces float and travel with surface currents; heavier or water-logged items sink or get stranded along coastal areas. Storms can lift and move stranded items again, spreading them further.

Where waste becomes pollution

Along coastal areas, ocean-bound waste accumulates at river mouths, in ports and on densely populated shorelines. In the sea, floating items, ghost gear and debris on the seabed persist for years and continue to move with currents. Because plastics remain in water and in sediments (layers of particles that settle on the seabed), the legacy stock already present matters as much as new inputs. Addressing the problem requires both prevention upstream—reduction, reuse and design for recycling—and action downstream—collection, sorting, safe disposal and verified recovery where waste meets water and in marine environments.

Ogyre acts as a principal actor where waste becomes pollution. Its Fishing for Litter–based network of local fishers in Italy, Brazil, Indonesia and Senegal works in two zones aligned with the problem described above: in the sea, crews collect debris encountered during regular trips (floating items, ghost gear, seabed debris) and bring it ashore; along coastal areas, teams intercept ocean-bound waste before it reaches marine environments. This dual focus reduces the residence time of both legacy stocks and new leakage. Each batch is weighed, photographed, recorded on a blockchain registry and delivered to local partners for the most sustainable end-of-life possible.

Scale sits at the heart of the issue. Every year, hundreds of millions of tonnes of plastic are produced, while large volumes end up trapped in rivers and seas. Because leakage happens slowly and builds up over time, postponing action only magnifies environmental damage and long-term costs. A credible response therefore needs to pair prevention with verified recovery, focusing on the points where waste reaches water and within marine environments themselves. Intercepting materials early, removing what persists, and transparently documenting results are essential to ensure that action is proportionate to the real scale of the plastic waste problem.

• European Environment Agency – EEA (2020), Plastics, the Circular Economy and Europe’s Environment – A Priority for Action link
• Ogyre (2025), Ogyre Protocol link
• Ogyre (2025), Ogyre Code of Conduct link
• OECD (2022), Global Plastics Outlook link
• United Nations Environment Programme – UNEP (2024), Global Waste Management Outlook 2024 link
• United Nations Environment Programme – UNEP (2023), Turning off the Tap: How the world can end plastic pollution and create a circular economy link
• WWF (2022), Impacts of Plastic Pollution in the Oceans on Marine Species, Biodiversity and Ecosystems link