How our throwaway culture is turning paradise into a graveyard
By Nick Paton Walsh, Ingrid Formanek, Jackson Loo and Mark Phillips

Plastic has become a vital part of our lives of convenience. Yet the coffee cup lids, water bottles and bags we use once and throw away do end up somewhere — in landfills, but also in the ocean. Nearly every piece of plastic ever made still exists today. More than five trillion pieces of plastic are already in the oceans, and by 2050 there will be more plastic in the sea than fish, by weight, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Some 8 million tons of plastic trash leak into the ocean annually, and it’s getting worse every year. Americans are said to use 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.

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http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2016/12/world/midway-plastic-island/