The ocean's invisible plastic problem — what ghost gear is, why it persists, and how the report-to-cleanup loop breaks it.
Ghost gear is any fishing equipment — nets, traps, lines, ropes — that has been lost, abandoned, or discarded at sea. Made of durable plastic, it can keep catching and killing fish, turtles, dolphins, and seabirds for decades after the fisherman who lost it has gone home.
It sinks out of sight, so it never makes the news the way an oil spill does. There is no global registry, no satellite that sees a tangled net 30 metres down, and no one is paid to look. Coastal communities see it first — and now they can record it.
All figures are widely cited global estimates from FAO, UNEP, and WWF. Not Bangladesh-specific unless sourced.
One image worth a thousand words. Follow a lost net from a stormy night at sea to the moment it is finally pulled out — and why that loop has to be broken.
A net snags, a storm takes a trap — it sinks.
Fish, turtles and dolphins are trapped for years.
A fisherman or coastal resident sees it and pins it.
Pins cluster into hotspots on the live dashboard.
NGOs and fisheries teams retrieve the gear.
Fewer entanglements, less ocean plastic.
Live from the ghost-gear map — 0 total reports, 0 resolved. Counters update automatically as reports are marked resolved.
