During a UN's environment ministers meeting in Nairobi, Kenya last month, Norway proposed a zero tolerance of plastic pollution and suggested an international treaty banning plastic waste from entering the sea. According to the BBC, ships cannot throw plastic overboard; however, there is no internationally law prohibiting plastics from entering the ocean through land.

Efforts to clean up current plastic waste on beaches were also proposed. The larger plastic pollution is broken down from the abrasion on sandy beaches and breaks down into microplastics.  

The UN is working to set up a committee to explore possibilities of global action to eliminate plastics waste as well as microplastics. Among the first steps, according to environmentalists, is to assess just how much plastic waste is being produced and put into the oceans on a global scale…a task that will not be an easy one.