Marine Plastics Litter and Microplastics - Foresight Brief No. 002 - September 2017

The global production of plastics has increased from 1.5 million tons in 1950s to about 300 million tons currently, at an average rate of 4 per cent per annum and is expected to continue growing (Boucher and Friot 2017). About 50 per cent of the plastics produced is for single use, and the literature estimates that 8 million tons (2.5 per cent) of the plastic produced are leaked into the oceans annually (PlasticsEurope 2016).