Over 8 million pieces of plastic make their way into the ocean daily. Large amounts of plastic are making its way into the ocean because people are carelessly throwing garbage and plastic on the ground, then rainwater and wind carry it into drains which eventually make its way into the ocean. Many bad things can happen and take place when plastic gets into the ocean. Plastic pollution is negatively impacting the oceans as well as the animals that live there. Solutions need to be found and enforced quickly before things get worse. The oceans are changing because of the large amount of plastic that is found there. In the article, Tiny Plastic, Big Problem, it says “Plastics do not easily degrade”. They may break down, but only into smaller pieces. …show more content…
“(Paragraph 2) From the text called Drowning in Plastic/ Can We Save Our Planet From Plastic?, the author says, “Now, more than 9 million tons of plastic trash end up in the ocean each year.“(Paragraph 20) The author of Plastic Pollution: What’s the Problem? Explains “Scientists think that 8.8 million tons of plastic winds up in the ocean every year — that’s as if you stacked up five plastic grocery bags full of trash on top of each other on every foot of coastline in the world. “ (Paragraph 5) This is changing the ocean because way too much plastic is winding up into the ocean, degrading, and then getting into more places. All of these bad things happening in the ocean have a terrible impact. Not only is the ocean changing, it has a negative effect on the animals living in it. Because of the amount of plastic in the ocean, animals and humans are being negatively impacted in many ways. Two of those ways are that the animals of the ocean are eating the plastic, thinking it is food and animals getting entangled in that plastic. Paragraph 20: Drowning in Plastic/ Can We Save Our Planet From Plastic? Says, “The damage is devastating. Many creatures accidentally eat plastic, thinking it is …show more content…
Research on Drowning in Plastic/ Can We Save Our Planet From Plastic? says, “In the U.S., 349 cities, counties, and states have banned or taxed the use of plastic bags in stores. Thirty-two countries have plastic bag bans as well. Some cities, including Seattle, Miami Beach, and several cities in California have banned plastic straws in restaurants.”(Paragraph 31) This is a great way to decrease the amount of plastic pollution in the oceans because with plastic bags being banned or taxed in many places, people will be less likely to use plastic bags because of its cost or ban. From the text called In Thailand, 17 Pounds of Plastic Kills Whales, Highlighting Ocean Pollution, the author says “Prime Minister Theresa May 14 has called for legislation banning straws and other single-use plastics. In Canada, plastic straws have already been banned in Vancouver, and similar efforts are underway in Scotland, Taiwan and Malibu, Calif. “ (Paragraph 13) This is an effective way to tone down plastic pollution because if it is banned, it will not be used. If it is not used, it will not end up in the
"An Ocean Of Trash." Scholastic Action 33.12 (2010): 16. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 31 Jan. 2014.
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 &
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
There’s more than 14 billion pounds of plastic and garbage is dumped into the oceans in the United States. Ocean pollution could be a thing of the past if people stopped littering, oil spills were prevented or contained, and if people weren’t allowed to use oil wells where natural water is. Pollution is still a major issue especially in China and Japan.
Large mammals such as whales, consume over 24,000 tons of plastic per year. The survival of many species, including the Hawaiian Monk Seal and the Loggerhead Turtle are being jeopardized and are nearly extinct. “The economical effects of plastic pollution cause an estimated $1.27 billion dollars in vessel damages per year and the cost of removing this debris cost $1,500 to $25,000 per ton” (Sounds Like Garbage). That’s over 13 billion dollars the government is using each year to try and remove some percentage of the plastic debris that has accumulated over the years. Plastic pollution also releases toxic chemicals that are being absorbed by the plastic, increasing the concentration a million times more. Which results in toxic chemicals entering our food chain that leads towards cancer, malformation, breast cancer, and even death. If plastic pollution continues to go unsolved, the ecological, economical and eco-toxicological effects it has had will basically begin, no it has already began, to destroy Earth and we are the ones who did this to
Water pollution has had devastating effects on the environment, which include irreversible effects to the oceans ecosystem. People often underestimate the importance of the ocean. They don’t realize how much damage pollution has caused to the ocean and the thousand of creatures that inhabit it. Earth is a huge place, but resources are actually very limited and will not last forever; unless there is a balance. We must protect the resources we have in order for them to last into the next generation. 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 effect the way we live. There should be stricter laws regulating human pollution, in order to protect our oceans ecosystem.
Max K. Period 8/9 Mrs. Garza 4/4/24. 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic have been thrown into the ocean worldwide. And we can stop this. The plastic in the ocean is causing the ocean to be ruined, and if humanity keeps going the way they are, our kids and grandkids will never experience the ocean as this generation can. Even though this is happening, there are ways mankind can fix this problem.
Plastic garbage, which decomposes very slowly, is often mistaken for food by marine animals” (Marine Problems: Pollution). A common misleading thought that occurs in many households is the idea of “I threw away my trash into the trash can. I paid the trash company to eliminate the trash, what they do with it is no longer my concern or my responsibility, those trash no longer exist in my world.” Then again, with the trash fee that the trash company charges the households, there are only so much that the trash company can do when it comes to “eliminate” the trash that they have collected. It is not a surprise to learn about trash companies dumping excess trash into the ocean as a method of “eliminating” trash.
Have you ever seen one of those articles that explains that we have too much trash in the ocean and it is killing animals? Well, get ready. This is another one of “those articles”. In the article “ Sea turtles are munching on plastic garbage floating in the ocean.” the author explains that we have too much trash and the animals are eating our waste. Most scientists are finding animals dead and their stomachs are full of plastic. “Her study estimates that 52 percent of sea turtles worldwide have eaten plastic waste.” (By Washington Post, adapted by Newsela staff)
The world population is living, working, and vacationing along the coasts. They are contributing to an unprecedented tide of plastic waste. Pollution is defined as the process that alters a substance or molecule on planet earth, the pollution is caused by the physical contact of an organic decaying particle with a clean particle in the same spot, at the time the two particles join together is when occurs pollution in which the environment is greatly altered. Too many, plastic is a modern day miracle, versatile, inexpensive and durable (Rochman 2014). To others, it is a scourge, a non-degradable pollutant that threatens to choke the global environment. Plastic pollution has led to the deaths of many animals, natural resources, and people (Rochman 2014). It is time to change America’s thinking and to learn from past mistakes.
To begin with, 100,000 animals died from plastic bags each year. This includes dolphins, birds, whales, and endangered sea turtles that confuse them for food. Plastic ends up in the ocean and because they were design to last, the plastic just floats in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for thousands of years. What is worst is that the rough waves and the sun’s ultraviolet ray will hit the bags and break them in to microscopic bits. Now, they are small as plankton and many fish can ingest them. This will kill the fish and animals that eat the fish if they did not die yet and this will lead to a decree in food and an increase in starvation in countries that depends on the fishing industry to survive. This illustrates just only one way on how plastic bags affect the ecosystem and then back around to us.
The mass amounts of plastic discarded is the underlying issue within marine plastic pollution. The colossal amounts lead to large amounts of mismanaged waste, and degradation into the dreaded microplastics (Detloff & Istel 2016; Jambeck et al 2015). Once contaminating the sea, detrimental effects on sea creatures occur, while creating sickening ‘marine soup’, and damaging the fragile aquatic ecosystem (Avio, Gorbi & Regoli 2017; Weinstein 2009). Many recommend waste reduction as the most effective means of decreasing plastic pollution due to the sheer volume of plastic produced in the modern world and its global infiltration (ñiguez, Conesa & Fullana 2016). Therefore, education on this issue should be paramount (Avio, Gorbi & Regoli 2017). A common understanding of plastic pollution would lead to a sustainable shift in
An area that I previously lived near was the Pacific Ocean, approximately two miles from Huntington Beach, California. I lived near this Southern California beach for twenty years and visited it frequently. I consider myself fortunate to have lived near a beach ecosystem with high biodiversity and perfect year-round weather. Plastic pollution is a huge problem on the beach and for our Earth, so its production needs to cease.
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.