Plastics pollution threatens public health, local economies, and ecosystems including the marine environment, and its environmental impact is growing at an alarming rate.According to a number of recent studies, the global production of plastics was over 438 million metric tonnes in 2017 and it is expected this figure will double between 2020 and 2040 and triple by 2050. The implementation of end￾of-life solutions, such as recycling and safe disposal, to reduce plastics has not kept pace with the amount of waste generated, resulting in an estimated 75 million to 199 million metric tonnes of plastics already in the ocean with up to 11 million additional tonnes entering the ocean each year. Exposure to chemicals and pathogens associated with plastics, microplastics, and the burning of plastics, has direct impacts on human health and economies, and the environmental costs of marine plastic pollution are significant. Plastics pollution presents a serious threat to marine life through entanglement, starvation, and toxicological harm, and is understood to alter the global carbon cycle.