To a fish, the ocean
is made of light.
Light means food.
Fish hunt by sight and by smell. A glint in the water is usually something alive.
So it eats.
0shiny things so far
There is always more.
Every surface sparkles. Every cloud glows.
Down here,
everything glitters.
Look closer
None of it
was glass.
The towers are bottles. The clouds are carrier bags. The light it was eating was plastic.
0
pieces of plastic inside one fish.
Two in three marine fish species studied have eaten plastic. 210 of them are fish people catch to eat.1
It even smells
like food.
Plastic adrift at sea grows a film of algae that gives off DMS, the scent of a meal. Anchovies hunt it like prey.23
Clear plastic looks
like a jellyfish.
Sea turtles pick the debris that looks most like their prey. Swallowing 14 pieces gives a turtle a 50% chance of dying.45
11 million tonnes
a year.
That is how much plastic reached rivers, lakes and the ocean in 2016. If nothing changes, it could be 29 million by 2040.6
A fish can't tell plastic from food.
We can.
India releases more plastic pollution than any other country, about a fifth of the world's total, most of it waste that is never collected.7
There is still no global plastics treaty. Talks resume in 2027.8
Now undo it.
Swim free through the field. Every piece of plastic you touch turns back into light, and the dream grows back around it.