Many of us are doing our bit to cut down plastic pollution by recycling and reducing single-use items such as bags and straws, but is it enough? With hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic leaking into our seas annually and plastics having been found in all corners of the ocean, there is no doubting the impact they're having on waterways and marine ecosystems. These powerful and hard-hitting images reveal the horrifying extent of damage.

One paradisaical corner of the Earth that is fast becoming marred by plastic trash is Bali. From over-use of single-use plastics and inadequate recycling and waste disposal management to overtourism, the result is piles of plastic items being washed to sea and bottle-and-bag strewn beaches.

The Central American nation of Panama has banned plastic bags as part of an effort to reduce single-use plastics which are a pollutant of the country’s beaches and damaging its marine life. Plastic debris regularly piles up on its beaches, including those around the capital of Panama City, such as Costa del Este, pictured.

Cape Town’s stunning rugged coastline is studded with beaches, whether on the Atlantic seaboard or the Indian Ocean side, which are an important habitat for many marine species. But they’re not immune to the blight of plastic trash either. Here litter that has been left behind on a beach with sweeping views across to Table Mountain is tangled in kelp. The seaweed is an important food source for invertebrates and crustaceans who are in turn eaten by fish and whales.

Lots of plastic waste can be seen washed up along the shoreline of the Thames Estuary which then drifts out to the North Sea. This image was taken in Purfleet, Essex, home to saltmarshes that are an important feeding ground for wading birds and other marine life. According to a Greenpeace report that looked at the extent of plastic contamination in 13 rivers across Britain, the River Thames was second worst, after the Mersey. The majority of plastic that enters our oceans, spills out from rivers.

Masses of discarded plastic ends up in our seas, including the Pacific Ocean where a vast collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean has become known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Here the second version of the Ocean Cleanup system, created by Dutch inventor Boyan Slat, successfully collects various plastic objects floating in the ocean, including minuscule plastic items and abandoned fishing gear, while allowing for fish and other animals to safely swim beneath it.

Another day in Devon, another idyllic sandy beach. Except not if you look closely. This selection of semi-degraded plastics was found on Mothecombe Beach, which is at the mouth of the Erme Estuary in South Devon before it flows out to meet the English Channel. The detritus was found woven into and buried under seaweed, an important food source for various wading birds.

So-called ghost nets, or abandoned fishing gear, are a major problem for creatures of all shapes and sizes in oceans all around the world. Here a marine biologist rescues a little crab that became snared in a ghost net as it floated around the Baltic Sea. Every year thousands of plastic fishing nets land in the North Sea and Baltic Sea.

Scuba divers resurface with bags of trash, much of it plastic, that they have collected from the ocean floor along Beirut’s Corniche in a National Beach Clean Up initiative. The country has a documented problem with waste being washed into its sea, and dumped on its beaches, from the overflowing landfill sites it has situated along the coast.

 

Plastic is having a devastating impact on many marine mammals, most famously sea turtles who have a high chance of ingesting the substance. A floating plastic bag is easily mistaken for jellyfish, algae, or other species that make up many sea turtles’ diets. An international study led by a University of Queensland researcher revealed that more than half the world’s sea turtles have ingested plastic or other human trash.

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Fish are also mistaking plastic for food, both large pieces and small pieces have been detected in the intestines of whales, small fish and molluscs, where they are thought to be potentially fatal.

Plastics have a detrimental effect on the world’s coral reefs too, becoming entangled on the marine organisms and leading to diseases. According to a research study undertaken by scientists at Cornell University in the US, which was published in the journal Science, more than 11 billion items of plastic were found on a third of coral reefs surveyed in the Asia-Pacific region. A figure that they predicted would increase to more than 15 billion by 2025. 

Coral reefs are not just important ecosystems for myriad marine species, but they also protect coastal areas by reducing the power of waves hitting the coast. The same study found reefs near Indonesia contained the most plastic with Thailand and Myanmar in the middle and Australia’s reefs the least affected. The ensnared plastics causes potentially fatal conditions for coral, including skeletal eroding band disease, that causes gradual destruction. 

 

It’s not just visible pieces of plastic that are damaging our oceans but microplastics. Defined as any plastic less than 5mm, these plastics can come from microbeads in beauty products, fibers from synthetic clothes, and larger items that have broken down. As well as harming the fish, seabirds, turtles, whales and shellfish that eat them (research has shown that they can adversely affect growth and reproduction), they also enter our food chain with an average European seafood consumer ingesting an estimated 11,000 plastic particles a year, according to the Marine Conservation Society. This image shows tiny sections of plastic washed up on a beach in Hawaii.

Research by the University of California discovered why birds such as egrets, pictured here fishing among discarded plastics in the Philippines, may be so prone to consuming plastic. They found plastic waste in the ocean emits the aroma of a sulfurous compound that some birds associate with food. Albatrosses and shearwaters were identified as marine birds particularly susceptible to the smell.

This striking long-legged wading bird, a Great Blue Heron which can be found in Florida's wetlands, thought its luck was in as it snared a juicy fish with its deft beak, only to discover its prey had been trapped in a plastic bag. These expert fishers swallow their prey whole and ingested plastic is linked to an increased mortality rate in seabirds.

US Marine Corps divers and local volunteers collect bags of drink cans, plastic bottles and fishing lines found on the ocean floor when carrying out an ocean clear up at Sunabe North Steps in Okinawa, Japan. They also retrieved a discarded toilet seat and even a car battery. The Japanese prefecture is known for its incredible and diverse marine life and is a fantastic scuba diving location due to its colorful coral reefs.

Swaying palms, pristine sands and milky blue water. The Maldives are pretty much picture-perfect but plastic is blighting the Indian Ocean nation’s shores too. Here washed up items litter the shoreline in the Koattey wetlands. Along with coral reefs, wetlands are critical habitats that act as barriers against rising sea levels and flooding due to climate change.

The Mediterranean also suffers from high levels of plastic pollution, a problem that becomes all too visible in the height of summer when tourists usually swarm to beaches such as this one near Athens, Greece to enjoy the warm waters of the Med. All too often leaving behind single-use plastics including straws, plastic cups, water bottles and inflatable pool toys that can get swept out to sea.

Mediterranean fishermen know only too well how plastic is polluting the sea and directly affecting their livelihood and a vital food source. Often the day’s catch also nets discarded water bottles. As part of a project called Arcipelago Pulito, Tuscan fisherman working in the Tyrrhenian Sea bring ashore the plastic they collect and take it for recycling at a specialized plant. About 10% of the volume of each fish haul caught is plastic waste. 

 

A recent study revealed that disposable face masks, used widely in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, release harmful chemical pollutants and nano-plastics into the environment. So it's concerning to see that they've been washing up on beaches, including LA's Long Beach and several others along the North Californian coast. According to beach clean-up charity Heal the Bay, up to 2,000 pieces of PPE including masks were found on LA county beaches in the second half of 2020.

Now take a look at the strangest things to wash up on beaches

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