“ Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.” Pollution is caused by variety of things such as the burning of fossil fuels, as well as oils, natural gases, and gasoline to produce electricity and power our vehicles. The earth is mostly made of 70% of water which leaves us 30% of land. The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean in the world. It surrounds the islands and continents of North and South America, Australia, Antarctica, and Asia. Water pollution is an appalling problem we have in the Pacific Coastal region that can affect all who lives by it. Because the Pacific Ocean has huge amounts of garbage pollution, that is not all that is polluting our oceans. A simple car wash does lead …show more content…
Everybody throws away trash with little or no thought about where it’s going. What you might not know, is that there's a lot of trash that goes into our ocean. You may think it is not a big deal and that it’s just a little bit of trash in a really big ocean, but it’s not just a little bit of trash. In fact, it’s a whole lot. There is a place between California and Hawaii called the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, but is better known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. This area is the largest landfill in the world and is completely in the ocean. The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is 90 percent covered with nothing but plastic; plastic which is a huge threat to fishes and birds. This garbage patch is not only from the pacific but it’s from all around the world. The currents of the waves carries however amount of debris in our pacific ocean and it’s can cause a lot of harm to our sea animals. In addition to all the garbage being held captive in our Pacific Ocean, there are also toxic things that probably we do and not usually think about …show more content…
Runoff is caused when there is a lot of water on land, it doesn’t know where to go but nearby streams or ponds and eventually in the ocean. In our community, let's admit we’ve all washed our cars in our driveway, we’ve all seen that one leaking truck on the road, and we’ve all used some type of fertilizer for our yard,. Well, these are huge factors of why our Pacific is polluted. When we wash are cars it’s not only soap flowing through the water into the ocean; there’s also petroleum hydrocarbons, volatile hydrocarbon, nutrients such as phosphorus, nitrogen, and other toxic chemicals that can affect marine life. “Fish and shellfish may not be exposed immediately, but can come into contact with oil if it is mixed into the water column. When exposed to oil, adult fish may experience reduced growth, enlarged livers, changes in heart and respiration rates, fin erosion, and reproduction impairment. Oil also adversely affects eggs and larval survival.” The toxic chemicals we put in our oceans leads marine animals to live an abnormal life. Sooner or later we will have little to no amount of sea animals in our
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest garbage dump in the world. According to estimates made by experts, the patch holds approximately three and a half million tons of garbage. Majority of this garbage is made of plastic. This waste is a threatening problem to the patch’s surrounding wildlife. Many animals are caught in the floating pieces of trash and it is the cause of the deaths of about one million birds and about one hundred thousand other sea animals. Due to the oceans nature and constant moving currents, the trash is also constantly moving. Therefore the size of the patch never stays the exact same. However, scientists believe it be approximately two times the size of Texas. The plastic is mostly broken down from larger materials into small pieces. The patch has been referred to as one scientist as a, “plastic soup”. This garbage poses such a threat mainly because it does not biodegrade. These plastics will be in the ocean essentially forever. Many plastics also contain chemicals, and absorb other chemicals and pollutants they become exposed to. These newly absorbed toxins are then leaked and distributed back into the ocean over time. The chemicals can directly enter the bodies of the animals which consume them. A study was being conducted by scientists of the fish that inhabit the area around the patch. What the researchers found inside the belly of one fish (that was no larger in size than that of a finger), was eighty four small fragments of plastic. It does not take scientists to recognize the impact of this problem, Zach Gold, who is sixteen, is from Santa Monica California. Zach enjoys s...
The North Pacific Gyre, home to the north pacific Garbage Patch, occupies the zone of the subtropical High between Haeaii and California. It is the largest and best studied of the gyress, though still fraught with unknowns. It is thought to be the trashiest, though this question is still being studied. Covering more than 20 million square miles, it is the largest on earth and therefor the planet’s largest garbage dumps. (Humes, 2012, p.
Which means their obviously bad for the aquatic marine life environment & are cause many different forms of damage for them & us as one. On p.g. 23 of The New York Times upfront magazine “Birds,fish, sea turtles, & others are getting tangled in plastic bags or mistake them for food & choke”. Someone else might argue that they could the plastic bags in landfills instead of oceans. But that counter- argument is flawed because you’re just polluting by burning plastic which is bad on our part we’re not doing our part to support & taking care of the earth. Plastic in the ocean isn't just bad for plants & animals but for humans too because of the food chain some of us eat animals as a meat source such as aqua marine life like fish. If the fishermen catch fish that have been eating plastic then it's in our food supply if we eat that fish it's gonna be bad for us so many will end up getting sick from the plastic inside of the fish then what will we do our aqua marine food supply will go down the drain we couldn’t eat the fish since it's basically contaminated with plastic that we’re dumping there instead of trying to fix it & getting rid of plastic bags for good for the good of the earth. We’re causing damage towards the earth by dumping all that plastic into the ocean which damages our water supply it’ll poison us although we clean the water it depends on how big the plastic particles are, it’ll make us sick & sense it’s been lying in the oceans could bring in new pathogens &
Recently, an uninhabited island in the South Pacific Ocean was found to be polluted with 38 million pieces of plastic that had been carried over by currents (Wang, “No one lives on this remote Pacific island”). The island, dubbed ‘trash island’, is home to diverse animal populations that have all been devastated by the pollution. On the beach, hundreds of birds were seen dead by reporters and scientists. When analyzed, the primary cause of death turned out to be consumption of plastic. When animals ingest plastic, it clogs their stomach and poisons their body with toxic chemicals. These toxic chemicals cause an array of issues, such as reproductive and endocrine problems. Eventually, this leads to death (Knoblauch, “The environmental toll of plastics”). But due to the nature of plastics, it can take hundreds or even thousands of years to completely degrade, meaning that as plastic pollution continues to build up, more places like ‘trash island’ will be discovered. According to conservation scientist Alex Bond, “…[The island] is just an indicator of what’s floating around out there” (Wang, “No one lives on this remote Pacific
This pollution problem is so ubiquitous plastic can be found throughout the marine environment from coastlines to near shore lagoons to remote ocean hotspots where plastics caught up in marine currents. And gathered up into huge garbage patches that swirl
Do you know that people are polluting oceans in so many ways, and what we are doing about it. First, my evidence shows that two billion people within thirty miles of the coast create 100 million metric tons of coastal plastic waste (Doc.1). In my own words, this evidence show that all this pollution is really harmful to ocean creatures and us. More evidence is that the North Pacific Gyre has collected lots of these pollutants, so it is nicknamed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (O.I.). This shows how we are polluting the oceans. My next evidence shows that a Beach Act was passed in 2000 saying the EPA or the Environmental Protection Agency will help states test and monitor coastal water pollution to protect swimmers (Doc.2). This evidence
Harmfull Effects of Ocean dumping include animals in danger with trash in their habitat, as well as contamination of public waters.
Pollution comes in many forms. In the ocean we dump a variety of substances, including human wastes, chemicals from fertilizers, oil, and trash such as plastic which all contribute to the growing issue of our ocean pollution. In addition to, our usable waters are finite. More than 97.5 percent of the water on this planet is undrinkable salt water; the remaining 2.5 percent has two-thirds of the usable fresh water locked up in glaciers, snow, and permafrost. Of the one-third of freshwater that is available for human use, 20 percent is used for industrial use. (“Water Pollution”) “In effect, water pollution reduces the volume of water available for use by human and other populations.” (Robin Clarke, Jannet King) Knowing that there are approximately 7.2 billion people and growing on this planet with only 0.83 percent of available for our use wouldn’t you want to do everything possible to help put an end to water pollution? (worldometers)
The ocean is an abundant source of life. It is home to thousand of different creatures, provides a great source of food, and provides the earth with about one half of the oxygen needed to sustain life. (National Geographic) Pollution especially plastic, is a catastrophic problem. Ironically plastic, which is a material designed to last forever is generally used for things we tend to throw away. Every year about one hundred to two hundred billion pounds of plastic are manufactured. Only 31% of that plastic is actually recycled. Biomass packaging estimates 10% of that plastic ends up in the ocean annually. About 20% of it coming from ships and other platforms, and the other 80% coming from land derived sources, such as international garbage dumping, winds or tides either way it finds its way to the ocean.(Biomass Packaging Co., et al)
Everybody throws away trash with little or no thought about where it’s going. What you might not know is that a lot of trash goes into our ocean. You may think it is not a big deal and that it’s just a little bit of trash in a really big ocean, but it’s not just a little bit of trash. In fact, it’s a whole lot. There is a place between California and Hawaii called the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, but is better known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. This area is the largest landfill in the world and is completely in the ocean. What are the effects of the landfill on the environment and how can it be prevented and rehabilitated to its original state?
Many people think that there is nothing special in cleaning of this rubbish, but in fact it’s not so easy as it sounds. Scientist have invented special instrument that will gather garbage, it is look like a net, but another problem has occurred. This problem is that many plastic pieces are the same size as little sea animals and special designed nets will catch not only debris, but a habitats of ocean too. Another barrier in saving of the ocean is its sizes. Even if people will invent the net which will only take trash, without fish or other animals, the scale of the ocean will make this job too long and time-wasting. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program has estimated that it would take 67 ships one year to clean up less than one percent of the North Pacific
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a vast island of rubbish found in our ocean. The island, twice the size of France, is clogging the ocean and killing wildlife. On hidden beaches in Hawaii the rubbish of mainly plastic is replacing the sand. It is known as the Great Pacific GYRE. There are beaches covered in plastic not something people would want to visit. In the stomach of one bird 276 pieces of plastic were found in it’s stomach. The 45 year old Keep Australia Beautiful Campaign is trying to prevent our rubbish from going to the island. This issue is God telling us to do something, he is telling us to fix this, to be the person he created us to be. He is telling us that it’s time for us to make the world how it once was not how it is now.
Research from the University of California San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography said that species in the ocean consume a projected 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic every year in the Pacific Ocean (Nall, 2014). Pollution of recyclable materials in the oceans is one of the leading causes of why some marine species are nearing extinction. Many authors of articles and books analyzing this topic tend to agree that pollution of our oceans is a problem. The future of this problem is where their ideas tend to differ. The following four literature reviews attempt to demonstrate and support my belief that pollution is getting worse in the ocean and more marine life ecosystems are being affected, but there are things that we as humans can do to change this. Imagine a world where we didn’t have to constantly worry about the vicious cycle of humans affecting animals and then animals in turn affecting us through consumption.
The film and picture proves to us that garbage isn’t just on land but also in our ocean. Here, albatrosses are affected because they are eating plastic dumped in the ocean mistaking it for food. This is clearly slow violence because of the serious plastic problem. Although it doesn’t seem like an issue, but in a large scale, it is. Some believe if one recycles, the problem goes away, but the reality is, the majority of plastics go un-recycled. Plastic isn’t easily degradable, and they break down into small pieces. Sooner or later, the plastic ends up at sea. And animals like albatrosses are eating them and partaking a slow and painful death. Looking into further research, more and more animal deaths are recorded and they are due to plastic. Marine animals are at risk since there is so much plastic at sea. Every day researchers are finding tons of plastics in sharks, whales, turtles, to name a
Water pollution is also a major thing in the world because almost 60% of it is fishes. It occurs due to several factors; the industrial waste dumped into the rivers and other water body’s cause am imbalance in the water leading to its severe contamination and deaths. And the infamous Global warming is the emission of greenhouse gases particularly CO2 is leading to global warming.