This is the heartwarming moment a fisherman saved a turtle tangled in a pile of floating trash.

The kindhearted man rescued the five-year-old sea animal, weighing seven kilograms, stuck in a net mixed with floating garbage in the middle of the sea in Rayong, Thailand, on May 15.

Footage shows the rescuer cutting through the strings to free the reptile and releasing it back safely into the sea. The reptile was unharmed following its ordeal, which almost certainly would have killed it without the heroic intervention of the fishman.

More than 12 million tonnes of plastic enter the ocean every year, killing thousands of seabirds and marine life. These creatures perish from consuming plastics as food or from entanglement.

According to statistics, there are more than 50 trillion microscopic pieces of plastic waste, weighing around 270,000 tonnes, floating in the ocean.

Hundreds of non-profit organisations worldwide are pushing efforts to battle huge corporate polluters and educate citizens about the consequences of water waste.