year. That’s enough to fill the Sydney harbour annually.

REUTERS/David Grey The Sydney Harbour lit by the setting sun, on a summer day in Australia, November 24, 2018.

Source: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE),World Resources Institute (WRI)

Washing clothes, meanwhile, releases 500,000 tons of microfibers into the ocean each year — the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles.

Jamie McDonald/Getty A man waits for his washing in a launderette during filming for the Adidas ‘I Kiss Football’ TV commercial in Potters Bar, England, June 12, 2001.

Source: UNEP, Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Many of those fibres are polyester, a plastic found in an estimated 60% of garments. Producing polyester releases two to three times more carbon emissions than cotton, and polyester does not break down in the ocean.

REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko An employee works onthe production of polyester yarns at the company ‘SvetlogorskKhimvolokno’ in Svetlogorsk, Belarus, May 25, 2016.

Source: Greenpeace, WRI

A 2017 report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimated that 35% of all microplastics — very small pieces of plastic that never biodegrade — in the ocean came from the laundering of synthetic textiles like polyester.

Cheryl Ravelo/Reuters A boy in the Philippines collects plastic materials near a polluted coastline.

Source: IUCN

Overall, microplastics are estimated to compose up to 31% of plastic pollution in the ocean.

Reuters A giant green turtle rests on a coral reef at a diving site near the island of Sipadan in Celebes Sea, east of Borneo, November 7, 2005.

Source: IUCN

The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of humanity’s carbon emissions.

Stringer / Reuters A man uses his