It's a stark statistic and one designed to awaken the world to the perils facing our seas.
Every minute, a whole rubbish truck of plastic is dumped into the world's oceans.
And the executive director of the United Nations' Environment Program, Erik Solheim, says it's choking marine populations.
"It's obscene. How can we have such horrendous plastic pollution coming up on our beaches more or less everywhere in the world? With the present predictions we will have more or the same amount of plastic in our oceans by 2050 than the combined weight of all fishes in the world. It's dangerous because it brings diseases and mixes with all sorts of pollutants and microplastics get into fishes."
World leaders gathering in Washington to tackle the crisis are announcing new marine sanctuaries covering almost 1.2 million square kilometres of ocean - an area larger than New South Wales and Victoria put together.
President Barack Obama designated the first United States marine reserve in the Atlantic Ocean - a 12,700-kilometre sanctuary off the coast of New England.
"Including pristine underseas canyons and seamounts. We're helping make the oceans more resilient to climate change. And this will help fishermen better understand the changes that are taking place that will affect their livelihood, and we're doing it in a way that respects the fishing industry's unique role in New England's economy and history."
Opponents of the new reserve complain that it threatens commercial seafood operators in the industry.
But President Obama told the conference that in a contest between humans and the oceans - the sea would always win out.
"So it's we that have to adapt. Not the other way around. Nature is actually resilient if we take care to just stop actively destroying it -- that it will come back. And certainly the oceans can come back if we take the steps that are necessary."
Oscar-winning actor and environmental campaigner Leonardo Di Caprio was also in attendance.
"We need more leaders and communities to take bold actions like this as a global community. We must protect and value vital marine ecosystems rather than treating the oceans as an endless resource to be exploited and as a dumping ground for our waste. Oceans absorb about a third of the carbon we pump into the atmosphere but we pushed it way too far. The ocean can no longer keep up with our rampant rate of carbon dioxide emissions."
US Secretary of State John Kerry says it is indisputable the actions of mankind are in a large part responsible for the dire state of the oceans.
"But it's also true that we are the only ones who can repair the problems that we have created: with every positive step that we take, with the marine protected areas that we create, with the networks that we create and the safeguards that we enforce to protect against illegal fishing, with the cooperation we pursue to combat climate change and to deepen scientific research."
He likens each step to "dropping a pebble" on the side of restoring and preserving the health of the ocean.
