Plastic trash litters all the oceans in the world and will be around to harm marine life for hundreds of years. Equally bad it that "biodegradable plastics" aren't degrading fast enough in the oceans to have an appreciable effect on protecting marine life.

A new United Nations report revealed that biodegradable plastics only live-up to their potential to degrade far more swiftly than ordinary plastics when they're packed into landfills and subject to high temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Both these conditions don't exist in the oceans.

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Dumped in the oceans, seas or any other body of water, biodegradable plastics degrade as slowly as ordinary plastics. And are deadly to marine life.

The 179-page UN report on plastic marine debris asserted that "Plastics marked as 'biodegradable' do not degrade rapidly in the ocean."

Plastics have long been known to cause serious ecological harm, entrapping marine life or being eaten by these defenseless creatures. By being engineered to decay faster, biodegradable plastics were supposed to prevent these catastrophes. It's not happening, said the UN.

The description of plastics being biodegradable is "well-intentioned but wrong," said Jacqueline McGlade, chief scientist at the U.N. Environment Program.

"A lot of plastics labeled biodegradable, like shopping bags, will only break down in temperatures of [122 degrees Fahrenheit] and that is not the ocean," said McGlade. "They are also not buoyant, so they're going to sink, so they're not going to be exposed to UV and break down."

A study published in 2015 estimated the mass of land-based plastic waste entering the ocean at 275 million metric tons. This massive amount was generated in 192 coastal countries in 2010, with 4.8 MT to 12.7 million MT entering the ocean every year.

The UN estimates that global plastic production grew four percent from 2013 to 2014 to over 311 million metric tons. Some eight million metric tons leak into the ocean each year, said the World Economic Forum.

The UN is pushing improved waste collection and management as the "most urgent solution" to reducing plastic trash, a big part of which will wind up in the ocean and other bodies of water.

Tagsbiodegradable plastics, oceans, UN, U.N. Environment Program