Benefits Of Non Biodegradable Materials

When ever you go to the beach, do you ever think about what can happen to an animal and the water when you leave a wrapper in the sand or a plastic bottle in the water? If you think about it, even a small piece of plastic can harm a fish. The fish could mistake it for food. This could potentially kill the fish. There are other things that people d that pollutes the ocean. An oil spill from a boat can get fish sick (Doc.2). Also, solid waste, plastics, glass, and foam (OI). Marine life can get trapped in any of these items (OI). There are many things we can do to prevent this, like, reducing plastic waste in stream, improve solid waste management, and increase, capture, and reuse (Doc.1). These are just a few of the many things we could do to

Fish and birds could be harmed from accidentally eating the plastic particles, or absorbing substances that leach out into the water. The main problem is the accessibility to freshwater organisms that can be easily confused as natural food.

Most of the garbage, in the Pacific Garbage Patch, are different types of plastic. Unfortunately, unlike other materials, plastics take years to break down. Instead of biodegrading like organic materials, the plastics go through a process of photodegradation, which breaks the plastic into molecular size pieces. The sea life, unable to see the miniscule plastics, swallow them up. It has been shown that towards the top of the pyramid, humans are also consuming the plastics that the animals had once eaten.

Over the few years, humans have discarded millions of tons of garbage into the oceans. Ever wonder where the cup you threw out this morning will end up? Or the plastic spoon you used for lunch? How about the cap of a water bottle? The calamitous plastic ends up in the water, taking thousands of years to decompose. The consumption of plastic by the marine life is perilous and the leading cause of death for life on shore.

Currently, 300 million tons of plastic are manufactured to supply the world demand and between 5 and 13 million tons are found in the ocean (Katsnelson, 2015). Based on current trends, by 2050, 2,000 million tons of plastic will be manufactured to supply the worlds demand for plastic, meaning more pollution in the oceans (Vaughan, 2016, May 23). As Richard Thompson has stated, “While some of the plastic floats at the surface, the heavier pieces sink to the ocean floor making it hard to clean up the waste” (Katsnelson, 2015). Some of the waste comes from fishing materials or cargo ships. For example, fishing nets, buoys and other debris that is left behind from fishermen lead to the

One of the issues that is currently harming the ocean is the presence of pollution. Studies have shown that over the past thirty years, people have increased their use of plastics and synthetic materials and recently it has become even more abundant (Laist). The amount of plastic debris that has entered the ocean is partially due to people 's inability to properly dispose of plastic and waste. This has immeasurable effects on the physical ecosystem, as well as the creatures who inhabit it. While plastic is very buoyant, it takes a very long time to degrade, and it is usually eaten by

Chemical compounds that are commonly heard of today such as BPA (bisphenol A) is a toxic compound found mostly in plastics and then are dumped into oceans that begin to poison our waters where humans, but mostly animals drink and ingest through the nose. (Barry, 2009). Another toxic chemical such as PVC (polyvinyl chloride) can be harmful to animals on land and in sea can leak from plastic water bottles. This intoxicates the water where animals drink and swim, causing them to grow ill and maybe even die. (Breast Cancer Fund, http://www.breastcancerfund.org/clear-science/environmental-breast-cancer-links/plastics/?referrer=https://www.google.com/) By eliminating much of the plastics consumption that ends up in the oceans, we will prevent animals and humans also from being affected by the harmful chemicals being produced.

“Around 260 million tons of plastic is produced every year, approximately 10% of this ends up in oceans. This litter is frequently consumed, often with fatal effects, by marine animals and birds who mistake it for food. The Trash Vortex of the Northern Pacific ocean is a patch the size of Texas consisting of trillions of pieces of decomposing plastic.” (Geer) Water pollution often directly correlates with other natural recourses that is being harmed by the same

One of the many kinds of pollution that exist is water pollution. Many threats and dangers to ocean species from pollution are found in the ocean. Plastic may be the largest threat to water pollution problems. Other problems may also result from oil spills, sewage spills, and trash. Plastic products pose the biggest water pollution problem. Items such as bottles and plastic bags that find their way into the ocean are often mistaken for food by hungry sea turtles, dolphins, whales and sea birds; killing the ocean animals by suffocation. Those plastics also contain toxic chemicals which can be dangerous posing a threat to all marine wildlife and also to humans.

Pollution from land goes into rivers and streams, which then flows out into the ocean. The polluted water is changing the condition of the great barrier reef in a negative way. When sediment and other pollutants enter the water, they suffocate coral reefs, speed the growth of damaging algae, and lower water quality. Pollution can also make corals more prone to disease. Along with sediment and chemical pollutants there are many other materials that get dumped at sea. This includes metals, glass, wood, plastics, and also nuclear waste. Some studies estimate that roughly seven billion tones of litter is put into the ocean every year. Quite a large quantity of this litter is from plastics. Plastics are one of the largest issues for ocean ecosystems as it can take several decades for plastic to decompose. Ingesting plastics is fatal, and around one million seabirds around the world die every year because of the

Since plastic bags have also negatively impacted marine life, many bags are now biodegradable plastic (Balestri, Menicalgi, Vallerini, and Lardicci, 2017). The change was to address the accumulation of plastic bags in the environment. The biodegradable bags, however, are not biodegrading in marine sediments. Some bags were placed in marine sediments where some cellulose was being broken down. Despite six months passing, the biodegradable bags still weighed 85% their initial weight. The sediment was normoxic prior to the addition of the biodegradable bag, but after the bag was added, the sediment was nearing hypoxic conditions. The physical barrier of the bag between the sediment and the water could have interfered with the diffusion of oxygen. The bag was also a thermal insulator; the sediment was cooler with the presence of the bag. Seagrass do not thrive in hypoxic conditions, which may imply that the presence of biodegradable bags in the sediment are detrimental for the proliferation of seagrass. The presence of the bag also resulted

The world produces two hundred billion pound of plastic a year, twenty billion of that ends up in the ocean each year (Silverman). Fourteen billion sinks and ends up damaging life on the ocean floor and the rest floats and end up in gyres and garbage patches (Silverman). This strikes much concern because plastic is not biodegradable; therefore, plastic floats there forever because microbes do not recognize it as food. Making matters worse, the sunlight photo degrades the bonds in plastic polymers and makes plastic smaller for tiny marine organisms to consume (McLendon) The United Nations Environment Program estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic (“Silverman”). Reducing the amount of plastic consumed, would lessen the amount of compost that is not biodegradable.

The water bottle industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the United States. This being said, our landfills are filled with more than eighty five percent of plastic bottles. Their long lifetime and thoughtless consumers are not only filing our dumps with these plastic bottles, but hurting our oceans too. Since water bottles do not biodegrade, they can float aimlessly on the ocean surface for years. They also may cause a passing predator to be fooled into thinking it is a resting prey. Little did that predator know, they were going to have a serious stomach ache trying to digest a plastic bottle. It also pollutes the soil and waterways as well. Besides the space water bottles physically fill, their production waste is just as dire. In America alone, we use about seventeen

We 're treating the oceans like a trash bin: around 80 percent of marine litter originates on land, and most of that is plastic. Plastic that pollutes our oceans and waterways has severe impacts on our environment and our economy. Seabirds, whales, sea turtles and other marine life are eating marine plastic pollution and dying from choking, intestinal blockage and starvation. Scientists are investigating the long-term impacts of toxic pollutants absorbed, transported, and consumed by fish and other marine life, including the potential effects on human health.

With the combination of polymers that don’t biodegrade and mass overproduction, companies are harming the environment in severe ways. Plastic, a material seen everywhere, is a polymer made from oil. It is mass produced to make everything from shampoo bottles to automobiles and does not biodegrade. When it is eventually thrown out, the waste usually finds it way into the ocean, where it is either buried under sediment or eaten by marine life (Weisman 287-295). Creating a material that will ultimately kill marine life will undoubtedly wreak havoc on the