Rubber Ducks Lost at Sea

On 10th January 1992, a cargo ship was hit by a storm in the Pacific Ocean and thousands of rubber ducks were lost overboard. Made of strong, durable, unsinkable plastic, these might be floating around the oceans for a very long time, along with tonnes of old toothbrushes, toys, bottle caps and shopping bags! Many might end up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area of plastic rubbish twice the size of Texas (USA), floating in a slow, swirling current in the Pacific Ocean. Plastic has amazing properties but it takes hundreds of years to decompose.

Light breaks it down into smaller and smaller bits, polluting the environment and affecting wildlife. And all this waste could be valuable materials that could be reused to make something else! Maybe we need to rethink how we design and make our stuff.