Feeling hungry? Well, we’ve got you covered. We have the perfect recipe for you: plastic soup. Yumm! We hope you’re hungry for some plastic facts and figures. Because when we look at the ingredients for this plastic soup, we are not very hungry anymore. And we don’t think you will be.

This article will help you understand all the ingredients of the plastic soup and enlighten what factors, countries and companies are responsible for the plastic soup in our oceans.

PLASTIC SOUP?

First things first. What is meant with plastic soup? The term ‘plastic soup’ refers to all the plastic in the ocean. This includes both the plastic floating in the ocean, like straws and plastic bags, but also the microplastics in the water.

Another term that is often used is ‘marine plastic pollution’. Marine debris or plastic soup is mainly discarded human rubbish which floats on, or is suspended in the ocean.

WHAT ARE THE INGREDIENTS OF THE PLASTIC SOUP?

The plastic soup is made up of various types of plastic materials, with the most common being single-use plastics such as water bottles, plastic bags, and straws. Other materials found in the plastic soup include fishing gear such as nets, lines, and traps, as well as microplastics that are too small to see with the naked eye.

Plastic does not perish. It only becomes smaller and smaller. Until they are tiny pieces of plastics (microplastics), and not visible with our human eyes anymore.

The invention of plastic made our lives more easy. In many cases plastics is the invention of the century. Providing opportunity to produce, innovate and consume comfortably on a large scale. But that is the problem: the large scale. Overuse and recycling issues lead to plastic everywhere in our nature.

The map below shows the composition of the plastic soup in different oceans and the type of plastic floating around in it.

Plastic usage EU members 2021 (source).