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Effects of plastic pollution in the ocean
Research paper the great pacific garbage patch
Research paper the great pacific garbage patch
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Recommended: Effects of plastic pollution in the ocean
The North Pacific Garbage Patch The North Pacific Garbage Patch is a disaster because it impacts the planet and humanity in terrible ways. The trash kills wildlife kills over 100,000 sea turtles and mammals annually. Sea creatures such as turtles confuse plastic bags with jellyfish and they eat them by mistake. Because the bags block their digestive tracks, it forces them to float making it impossible for them to dive down and eat the real food. A study done by the EPA showed that fifty percent of dead sea turtles have plastic bags in their stomachs. Plastic also damages boat and submarine equipment, litters beaches, discourages swimming, and harms commercial and local fisheries. What is the North Pacific Garbage Patch? It is a collection
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...
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 &
The theme in a Plastic: A Toxic Love Story and " A Dirge" are both on polluting water with plastic. You should not pollute the water with plastic because it could damage the animals in the water.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific trash vortex, is a collection of litter which has ended up in oceans, seas and other large bodies of water. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch spans from the West Coast of America to Japan. These areas are linked together by the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone; this convergence zone acts as a highway for litter to move from one patch to another. It has also been theorised that the ocean floor beneath the Great pacific garbage patch is also littered with a lot of rubbish on its own. This is a valid theory because it has been proven by Oceanographers and Ecologists that 70% of marine debris actually sinks down to the ocean floor. Although the scientists have researched this garbage vortex, they did not find it. However, when the founder of this garbage vortex, Charles Moore, was boat racing, he found this garbage vortex while he was travelling from Hawaii to California. He and his crew members noticed that their ship was surrounded by millions of
M., Gutierrez…). This is something that the Marine Debris Program is looking to eliminate. By removing the plastic from the water, and preventing it from leaking its chemicals, the eating of the plastic in general, and the prospect of these plastics being breeding grounds for dangerous pathogens, the marine environment would be safer for animals and humans alike. So, it is clear, the removal of this harmful debris, specifically plastic is something that must be done through this Citizen Science
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
Today, seven species of sea turtles deem the ocean as their home. These gentle creatures have thrived on earth since the dinosaurs roamed the lands (some 110 million years ago); yet in recent years, six of the seven species have become critically endangered or vulnerable to endangerment (WWF 2016). This result is in direct correlation with the negative impact human beings have inflicted, and continue to inflict, upon the planet. It’s no coincidence that the population of sea turtles has plummeted as the human population has risen, for along with the expansion of humans comes the expansion of consumerism, which is ultimately the root of devastation for the sea turtles. Human beings could substantially reduce their negative impact on these innocent animals by making two positive changes in their lives: by negating the use of plastic, such as plastic bags, and adopting an environmentally conscious, vegan lifestyle.
While a beautiful sunset on the beach can be astounding, a spectacular scene is not the only benefit oceans provide. Without the oceans, we would not have adequate amounts of oxygen to breathe or enough protein to eat. The Earth's climate would not be inhabitable for human beings and many animals. The oceans supply medicines, food and drinking water which arise from ocean processes. Out of the five oceans, the Pacific Ocean is the world’s largest and deepest ocean. It spreads over an area of 165.2 million square kilometers. More than 25,000 islands float within the Pacific. Within the Pacific Ocean lies an unusual island, an island that is more than twice the size of Texas and is earth’s largest landfill, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (McLendon). Society is unaware that the excess use of plastic and other non-biodegradable materials has ended up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and is the main source of ocean pollution. The solutions, ranging from manual clean-up to eliminating any further obliteration to the Garbage Patch, will reduce the amount of effluence the world has to endure.
Every time we throw away a plastic bottle, drive our cars, and even burn those millions of fossil fuels to operate all those huge factories, there is a chance it will pollute the ocean and eventually affect the way we live. There should be stricter laws regulating human pollution, in order to protect our ocean ecosystem. The ocean is an abundant source of life. It is home to thousands 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.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is sometimes referred to as the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch and the Pacific Trash Vortex is a floating patch of garbage that has collected in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, which is located in the middle of two high-pressure areas between Hawaii and California. The majority of the garbage, which is also called marine debris, in the patch is plastic, but items made from other materials such as glass and rubber are also present. Though the garbage patch is too large and goes too deep under the surface of the ocean for scientists to determine exactly how much garbage is in it, they have collected up to 750,000 bits of plastic one square kilometer (CITE). This sort of debris floating around in the ocean is dangerous for several reasons. One important reason is that marine animals mistake some of the garbage, especially plastics, for food (CITE). Another reason that the floating debris is so dangerous is because it can block sunlight from reaching deeper levels of the ocean, and thus, it removes the energy source for many autotrophs like alga...
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?
...ic and get ill from it. All this trash can kill the mammals in the ocean even if it’s just floating on top of the water. It’s still harmful to them and humans. It can kill, suffocate or poison the mammal. If humans decide to go swimming in the ocean and choke on a piece of plastic that breaks into pieces and they open there mouth for some reason and get trash in their mouth they can choke and maybe die. Just because people like to put their trash anywhere they please.
Although plastic bags appear to be fragile and light, their negative environmental effect is devastating. Plastic bags may cause large amounts of pollution in every step of their limited life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials, production, transportation, and recycling or disposal. Plastic bags can be defined as the most damaging form of environmental pollution. They can have a damaging effect on marine animals and wildlife in addition to the aesthetic effects on beaches, parks, and trees. Plastic bags are potentially one of the main causes of death to marine animals (Harbor keepers,2008). Up to one hundred thousand marine animals or more die each year from eating plastic bags which are mistaken for food. This can result in blocking the animal’s intestines and possibly lead to the animal’s death. Another possible situation is that wildlife, such as birds, can get tangled in plastic bags causing choking and immobility, which may eventually lead to death. (Senior, 2008) and (Citizen Campaign, 2010). In other situations, after plastic bags photo degrade they remain toxic and could be eaten by fish, shellfish or any other marine life and survive this allows the toxins to enter our food chain through bioaccumulation (Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, 2011).
It is sad to say but humans have played their part in deteriorating the earth. We have polluted and killed the very thing that takes care of us. If you ride by any lake or river you find trash and debris around it. In the “The Call of the Wild” the author says that we have committed war against the earth by the dumping of poisons and explosives upon it (337). Unfortunately, plastics are the things that are doing the most harm to our environment. Plastics are convenient and we use them everyday and these are the things that we find in the oceans, rivers and lakes. They are harmful to the earth as well as human health by directly intoxicating us with lead, cadmium and mercury. Plastic debris laced with harmful chemicals are often found inside of our marine life and can poison them. Plastic can survive for thousands of years and many invasive species are found in them which can disrupt our habitats. We need to limit our consumption of plastics and make sure that they are disposed of in their proper places.