Every year, 18 billion pounds of plastic trash gets dumped into our oceans.

That's enough to cover every foot of coastline around the world with five full trash bags.

Pollution has turned our oceans into a ticking time bomb.

But back in the 1970s, a little-known development off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida,

tried to save their

local reef by dumping a staggering 2 million used car tires directly on top of it.

Um, what?

Despite what you might think, this wasn't meant to hurt marine life.

Oh no, they wanted to help it, and the results might surprise you.

So stick around to find out just why 2 million tires ended up in the bottom of the ocean.

You're listening. You're listening.

You're listening.

You're be amazed.

Okay, so before we jump into the tires, there's some super important stuff you need to know first.

Super important and super scary.

Prior to 1972, there wasn't anything stopping companies from a disposing of anything they wanted to in the oceans.

It was open season. In 1968 alone, an

estimated 38 million tons of unwanted excavated materials, 4.5 million tons of industrial waste,

and another 4.5 million tons of sewage, 100 million tons of plastic, between two and four tons of chemical waste,

and finally one million tons of heavy metals were released into the ocean.

But these are just estimates. Honestly, no one really knows how much harmful junk got sunk,

because there's little to know record keeping from the time.

...