They believe it takes hundreds of years to break down in the environment and from streets and landfills to storm drains, streams and then rivers.

A great deal of plastic finds its way into the ocean, where it can float around indefinitely.

One of the people working on a solution is one of tomorrow's heroes globally.

On Lee, 8% of plastic packaging is being recycled.

Majority of it is being land filled on.

A lot of it goes into the oceans.

Frankly, our world hasn't been moving forward and innovating plastic recycling for the past decades.

My name is Miranda Way, and I'm 23 years old.

I'm an entrepreneur and innovator, and I'm the co founder of Bio Selection.

I've been working on developing innovations to solve the plastic problem ever since I was 17 years old, my high school best friend and I took a field trip to a waste transfer station, Vancouver, Canada, and we were just astounded by how much plastic packaging goes to the landfill way actually don't know how long it takes for plastics to break down their numbers around the world, saying it takes longer than 1000 500 years about half of the peninsula in the San Francisco Bay area every day, 11 metric tons of this material is being recovered at our partner facility.

That's about the same weight as about 3 to 4 commercial trucks.

So imagine how much film it takes to make up that weight, considering each plastic bag only weighs about 3 to 5 g.

What we have developed an innovative process, and this process can be used at large scales to process tons and tons of material around the world.

Every day we're using catalysts that can break down plastics but basically unlocking a mechanism that allows the plastic to have a chain reaction with the self.

We are taking dirty plastics.

Right now, we're focusing on films that are not recyclable.

We turn them into chemicals that are essential precursors for products such as nylon nylon yarn, also nylon resin that can be used to make products in the automotive and apparel industries.

Right now, we're able to achieve about 70% conversion from plastic waste material.

Thio these chemicals, my dream is be able to see that something that's sad piece of plastic that right now would go to the oceans or landfill could be used to make a brand new Patagonia jacket or a brand new pair of running shoes.

When it comes to solving these massive world problems that we have, many of the answers are embedded in technology.

There's so much creativity out there, so much knowledge in our world, I believe we were able to solve all of them if we try way.