Ocean rubbish is building up. This artist reveals what’s out there.

Manufacturers design products such as plastic utensils and to-go cups to be used only once. But these items don’t go away: Scientists believe some plastic trash lasts forever.

Even pharmaceutical waste, including pill containers, syringes, and inhalers, finds its way to the beach.

Artist Barry Rosenthal builds these assemblages to illustrate the extent of marine pollution. He keeps trash in his studio for months—sometimes years—until a critical mass of color emerges.

Rosenthal chose oddly shaped plastic objects for this composition.

Artist Barry Rosenthal builds these assemblages to illustrate the extent of marine pollution. He keeps trash in his studio for months—sometimes years—until a critical mass of color emerges.

Manufacturers design products such as plastic utensils and to-go cups to be used only once. But these items don’t go away: Scientists believe some plastic trash lasts forever.

Learn more about plastic waste and take the pledge to reduce it at www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/plasticpledge.

Rosenthal created an angular portrait out of pens, pencils, and markers. He finds the writing utensils strewn by the hundreds on a New York beach, many of them no longer usable.

Rosenthal collected these motor oil containers along the shore at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York