Hello and welcome to More or Less. We are the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Numbers in the

News all around us. I'm Tim Harford, and in a galaxy full of confusing data, I'm a

fruit who knows where his towel is.

Over the last few years, it's been difficult to escape the topic of our planet, and there

many ways in which we're destroying it. Those of us who are of an ecological bend, it

can seem difficult to know where to start. But not so for social media stars Mark Rober

and the enigmatically named Mr. Beast.

I recreated every single separate squid game in real life.

Oh no, that's not for this program. That's Mr. Beasts. I know he said Squid. Can we get

the Jimmy Kimmel clip?

So Mr. Beast and I, right? So we got all of our friends together. Our goal is to move

30 million pounds of trash and plastic from the ocean, and we got some nonprofits who are

really good with ocean stuff to agree. For every one dollar we could raise, they'll remove

one pound of plastic from the ocean trash. And so really, we're trying to raise 30 million

dollars by the end of the year, which is just bonkers.

Aside from the bonkosity, the effort is pretty laudable, but loyal listener David wrote

to more or less at bbc.co.uk with questions.

Removing rubbish from the ocean is something I definitely support, but as a loyal listener,

I have to ask, is this a big number? How much plastic is in the ocean? How much new plastic

is produced every day? And how much would it cost to collect all the plastic?

Also, how much is 30 million pounds in metric? The answer is just a bit less than 15 million

kilograms or 15 thousand metric tons. So that one was easy, but David's questions are

...