A key reason plastic trash is so damaging to the environment is that it doesnt disappear it breaks into small pieces called microplastics that can linger for decades or more and can travel on the air, in water, and inside living creatures.

Scientists around the world now issue frequent warnings that these plastic particles are nearly everywhere. Theyve been found on the planets highest peaks and in the lowest trenches.

The United Nations Environment Program estimated in 2014 that the scourge of plastics in our seas causes at least $13 billion in damage annually to marine ecosystems (at the time, the UNEP said that figure was likely a significant underestimate ).

Scientists have also speculated the problem will soon be so widespread that the material will wind up in the geological record .

Once buried, being so hard-wearing, plastics have a good chance to be fossilized and leave a signal of the ultimate convenience material for many million years into the future, Jan Zalasiewicz, a professor of paleobiology at Englands University of Leicester, said in a 2016 paper . The age of plastic may really last for ages.

Heres a look at some of the more far-flung places plastics have appeared on our planet.