“The plastic problem” was recognised as one of the world’s largest growing environmental concerns by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) in 2016. It is estimated that by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans. Scientists have documented a growing amount of plastic in the Arctic Ocean. Plastics travel on ocean currents to the far north and accumulate in deep-sea sediments, water, ice, and animals. With its harsh living conditions and limited food web, the Arctic is particularly vulnerable to the plastic burden exacerbated by climate change. This chapter describes how marine plastic litter in the Arctic has evolved as an environmental problem. We look at the evolution of the Arctic’s plastic problem by first describing the issue based on research literature. Second, we examine how newspapers have written about marine plastic in the Arctic since the problem was first publicly noted in the 1980s. The chapter provides a chronology of the news, paying particular attention to transitions in how the problem has been defined. Further, the role of (cold) water in the differing interpretations of this problem is scrutinised. The chapter contributes to the current volume by telling “a plastic story” that links with many binaries and concepts discussed in the volume: matter and meaning, fluid and solid, scarcity and abundance, the liquid and solid forms of water, as well as materiality and transformations by water.