Marine litter notoriously affects the ecosystems of our world’s waterways. As a result, industries such as fisheries and tourism, and even governments, continue to experience sustained economic impacts. To date, few studies have explored the topic of marine litter costs, which limits the ability of local governments to assess the problem and propose solutions or alternative legislation to address the problem.

The Ocean Cleanup and its partners have now shared an Economic Assessment Model: Costs emerging from Marine Plastic Pollution in land-based water sources.

For the USA this means an estimate true cost between $77M and $510M per year and for Canada between $6 and $66M per year!

Below you will see the estimated costs for Canada:

Have a look at the the true cost of plastic pollution for your country here.

This should turn into excellent business cases with return on investment to do something about this!