Stop Plastic Pollution: Follow the Plastic to the Sea
Follow plastic as a flow: what is not reduced or reused becomes waste; what is not collected becomes litter; a share of litter reaches rivers and the sea, where it stays for centuries.
Before you try
What if every bottle were collected but nothing was recycled? Would the sea still be safe?
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What happened?
Move a control to see what changes and why.
Rounded flows for one town; the share of litter reaching water is a typical figure that varies with drains, rivers and rain.
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Try these ideas
- Run 30 years for the Typical town, then for the Zero-waste town.
- Raise only collection to 100% and see how much sea plastic remains.
- Find the smallest change that cuts sea plastic by half.
Why it works
Every person in a typical Indian town uses several kilograms of plastic a year: bags, bottles, wrappers, packaging. Some is reused, some is collected by sweepers and trucks, and of that a part is recycled while the rest is landfilled or burnt. What escapes collection is litter, and rain washes a large share of litter into drains, rivers and finally the sea, where plastic does not rot but breaks into ever smaller pieces that end up in fish, salt and even rain.
The fixes form a ladder: reduce (do not make the waste), reuse (a steel bottle replaces hundreds of plastic ones), collect (litter cannot reach the river), and recycle (though only some plastics can be, and only a few times). India banned many single-use items in 2022 for this reason. In this simulator you set each rung, run the years and see the plastic accumulate in the sea.
Check your understanding
Question 1 of 4
Most plastic in the sea gets there
Which action keeps the most plastic out of the sea per kilogram?
Plastic in the sea
A town collects 60% of its waste. The other 40% becomes
Explain it in your own words
What changed? Why did it happen? Where might you notice this in everyday life?
What will you discover next?
Try Rescue the Lake: Nutrients, Algae and Oxygen next.
For parents & teachers
- Count the plastic items your family throws away in one day.
- Ask: what happened to the plastic bag ban in your state?
- Design a school that produces no single-use plastic.