Stopping Single-Use Plastics

The Problem

An estimated 33 billion pounds of plastic enters the marine environment from land-based sources every year – this is roughly equivalent to dumping two garbage trucks full of plastic into the oceans every minute. Tens of thousands of individual marine animals have been observed suffering from entanglement or ingestion of plastics permeating the ocean environment. Plastics are impacting everything from zooplankton and fish to sea turtles, marine mammals and seabirds.

Plastics never go away. Instead, they break into smaller and smaller pieces. Recycling is often presented as a solution to our plastics crisis, but it falls short. Only 9% of all the plastic waste ever created has been recycled.

The Solution

To stop plastic from entering our oceans, we must reduce the amount of single-use plastic being produced at the source. Solving the plastics problem in our oceans will ultimately take concerted action from companies, governments, and advocates like you.

From multinational corporations to local restaurants – companies need to adopt alternatives to single-use plastics.
At all levels, governments need to enact smart legislation and regulations that limit or eliminate single-use plastics and ensure they don’t end up in our oceans.
Consumers have the most important role of all. Make your voice heard and lead by example.

Take Action

You can help protect our vibrant oceans and marine life from plastic pollution with Oceana right now.

Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act

Oceana helped to introduce in Congress the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act, the first-of-its-kind legislation to address the plastic crisis by significantly reducing unnecessary single-use plastics and holding companies accountable for their pollution.

Tell the U.S. Congress to pass the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act now to protect our oceans and marine life >>

Take Action

#RefillAgain

Join the #REFILLAGAIN movement!

We're demanding that major soft drink bottlers and companies including The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Danone, and the Dr Pepper Snapple Group give us the option to buy their product in a refillable bottle instead of a throwaway single-use plastic bottle.

Sign the petition and ask leading soft drink companies to #REFILLAGAIN >>.

Take Action

Tell Amazon: Less Plastic, Please

Amazon has a plastic problem — generating an estimated 599 million pounds of plastic packaging waste in 2020 alone, most of which can’t easily be recycled.

As scientists warn that plastic pollution may be nearing an irreversible tipping point, companies like Amazon must take action to stop catastrophic effects on our environment, our climate, and human health.

Tell Amazon to be transparent about its use of plastic packaging, and take immediate, company-wide action to reduce it >>.