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Marine plastic How does plastic move through the ocean?

Trace plastic from land and sea-based sources through currents, fragments, wildlife encounters, evidence, prevention, and governance.

lessons

~10 min

to learn

🔬 Science

subject

Adults

level

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What you’ll learn

Plastic follows a source-to-sea pathTrace how plastic moves from land and sea-based sources through ocean habitats.Plastic pollution is a connected material flow shaped by sources, transport, buoyancy, currents, and sinks.
Small pieces behave differentlyExplain how weathering, fibers, biofilms, and particle size change plastic exposure.Fragmentation and surface changes make smaller plastic harder to see, sample, and remove.
Animals encounter plastic in different waysDistinguish ingestion, entanglement, habitat contact, and food-web exposure.Biological effects depend on species, life stage, particle, dose, habitat, and co-stressors.
Impacts depend on place and evidenceEvaluate surveys, laboratory methods, models, and risk claims about marine plastic.Reliable conclusions connect standardized observations to mechanisms, uncertainty, and alternative explanations.
Prevention works across the life cycleCompare prevention, cleanup, capture, circularity, and governance responses.The most durable solutions reduce unnecessary material and leakage while measuring real-world outcomes.

Questions this course answers

What does a source-to-sea approach emphasize?

Plastic can move through land, rivers, estuaries, coasts, and the open ocean, so interventions should match the whole pathway.

Why can lost fishing gear remain a hazard?

Nets, lines, and traps can continue catching or entangling wildlife when they are no longer controlled by fishers.

What usually happens when sunlight and waves weather a plastic item?

Weathering weakens plastic and can create fragments that are harder to see and remove.

Why can a biofilm change a plastic particle's movement?

A coating of organisms and material can alter roughness, density, and interactions with water and animals.

What does finding plastic in an animal's gut prove most directly?

Gut contents demonstrate ingestion, but the size and cause of any biological effect require additional evidence.

Which factor can change the effect of a plastic exposure?

Exposure and sensitivity vary with the material, organism, context, and co-occurring pressures.

Grounded in trusted sources

UNEP, Plastic Pollution and Marine Litter, https://www.unep.org/topics/ocean-seas-and-coasts/ecosystem-degradation-pollution/plastic-pollution-and-marine-litter
UNEP, From Pollution to Solution: A global assessment of marine litter and plastic pollution, https://www.unep.org/resources/pollution-solution-global-assessment-marine-litter-and-plastic-pollution
US EPA, Impacts of Plastic Pollution, https://www.epa.gov/plastics/impacts-plastic-pollution
National Academies, Reckoning with the U.S. Role in Global Ocean Plastic Waste, https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/other/dels/plastics-in-the-ocean/
NOAA Marine Debris Program, Why is Marine Debris a Problem?, https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/discover-marine-debris/why-marine-debris-problem
UNEP, Source-to-sea Approaches, https://www.unep.org/topics/ocean-seas-and-coasts/ecosystem-degradation-pollution/source-sea-approaches

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

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