Marine pollution occurs when substances used or spread by humans, such as industrial, agricultural, and residential waste; particles; noise; excess carbon dioxide; or invasive organisms enter the ocea
While marine pollution can be obvious, as with the marine debris shown above, it is often the pollutants that cannot be seen that cause most harm.
Acid mine drainage in the Rio Tinto River
Can floating in the ocean
Beach littered with garbage
Marine plastic pollution is a type of marine pollution by plastics ranging in size from large original material such as bottles and bags, down to microplastics formed from the fragmentation of plastic
An exhibit at the Mote Marine Laboratory that displays plastic bags in the ocean that look similar to jellyfish
Atlantic Ocean marine plastic on a beach in Tenerife
Microplastics among sand and glass spheres in sediment from the Rhine. The white bar represents 1 mm.
Polystyrene foam beads on an Irish beach