English: Blue shreds of plastic adorning hedge Over 200 million tons of plastic are manufactured annually around the world. Because it is cheap plastic gets discarded easily and its long life means that it survives in the environment for long periods. Plastic shopping bags can last up to a thousand years in a landfill. Plastic is believed to constitute 90% of all rubbish floating in the oceans where it causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals. Soil is also badly affected by plastic pollution because plastic goods never biodegrade completely and remnants remain in the soil, disrupting the process of water and oxygen absorption. Plastic remnants also block sunlight, resulting in the sun not being able to warm the soil properly.