FEATURE: UN’s mission to keep plastics out of oceans and marine life

"Plastic pollution is surfing onto Indonesian beaches, settling onto the ocean floor at the North Pole, and rising through the food chain onto our dinner tables," the agency known as UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has said.

In 1950, the world's population of 2.5 billion produced 1.5 million tons of plastic; in 2016, a global population of more than 7 billion people produced over 300 million tons of plastic – with severe consequences for marine plants and animals.

"According to one estimate, 99 per cent of all seabirds will have ingested plastic by mid-century," Petter Malvik, UN Environment Programme's Communications Officer, told UN News.