Effects Of Plastic On Marine Life, And Increasing Plastic Waste On Land

In the National Geographic article “Eight Million Tons of Plastic Dumped in Ocean Every Year”, author Laura Parker expresses how violent the simple act of dumping trash into the ocean really turns out to be. This article goes into depth telling exactly what plastics pollution is causing, where it’s mostly coming from, and what you can do to decrease this problem and help save both our planet and ocean wildlife.

    People do not realize the immense impact social media has on their lives.  Social media first impacted people’s lives with the invention of the telephone in 1890.  Following this, the radio entered many homes in 1891; this was the beginning of social media.  During the twentieth century, computers and the Internet began the modern rise of today’s social media. UseNet, in 1979 was a virtual newsletter, which began what people think today of as modern social media.  When home computers became popular during the 1980s, such sites as relay chats took off.  Then, in 1997, the first true social media site , Six Degrees, came about: “It enabled users to upload a profile and make friends with other users. In 1999, the first blogging sites became popular, creating a social media sensation that’s still popular today” ( “Complete History of Social Media: Than and Now”). Although social media has some positive effects,  social media has changed the world for the worse because it negatively affects politics, privacy, and bullying.

Plastic isn’t known to be a substance made for consumption, but you may be eating it every day. In “Our Oceans Are Turning into Plastic…Are You?” the author Susan Casey is informing us how bad plastic is polluting our oceans. Susan Casey is the author of a New York Times best seller, “The Devils Teeth”, helped publish Into Thin Air and The Perfect Storm, and is the editor and chief of Oprah Winfrey’s Magazine “O”. She argues that these pollutants are doing damage in multiple facets, such as affecting food chains, disrupts organism reproduction, and directly cause the things we consume to be harmful to us. The author found many creative ways to appeal to all three persuasive appeals which are Logos, Pathos, and Ethos. Although the article was great at the end she added things that weren’t needed and seemed to just be there as filler.

In conclusion, it should have been learned that the issue of plastic pollution has become ruinous. The cost of repair and the inconvenience of lifestyle changes cannot compare to the frightful future this planet is headed. At current rates, hazards are not just inflicted on Earth's oceans but individual human health and the other creatures that rightly inhabit this land. With this concern

Social media has only been existing since the year I was born, 2002 to be exact. And easy access to the the internet came about only ten years before. Now as of 2016, there are countless social media

With over 5000 types of plastics, Heather explains that the problem is very complex. As plastic ends up in marine ecosystems it begins to pollute and has massive monetary effects. Marine litter costs Europeans billions annually though cleanup projects, damage to vessels, and fish catches. Heather also mentioned the harmful amounts of microbeads, which Megan Leslie banned in Canada, in the oceans that are harming small ocean ecosystems. She explained that the effects of marine litter on the economy and ecosystems are extensive, however she noted that there is one place that we haven't check for the harmful effects of plastic. People! Plastics are made with harmful toxic chemicals and it only makes sense that people would be as negatively affected by plastic as our ecosystems and economies are. When asked if parents should be worried about the plastic toys parents buy their children Heather explained how when children put plastic toys in their mouths they are potentially being exposed to toxic flame retardants. Heather explained that our economy is linear, which means it destructively uses finite resources and creates waste. Heather believes that we must create circular economies that feed into each other which would allow us to reuse our resources and recycle our waste (Leslie, H. 2017, February, 2). The idea of a circular economy relates back to the “Green Economics” where

In the article When the Mermaids Cry” The Great Plastic Tide by Claire Le Guern Lytle, she wrote “For more than 50 years, global production and consumption of plastics have continued to rise. An estimated 299 million tons of plastics were produced in 2013, representing a 4 percent increase over 2012, and confirming and upward trend over the past years” This means that more and more trash is added to the 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic floating in the ocean. Almost everything around us is made out of plastic, this is later misused and ending in the wrong place. The Center for Biological Diversity wrote “In the first decade of this century, we made more plastic than all the plastic in history up to the year 2000. And every year, billions of pounds of plastic end up in the world’s oceans. Most ocean pollution starts out on land and is carried by wind and rain to the sea. Once in the water, there is a near-continuous accumulation of waste.” Our plastic is misplaced and it escalates from there. However, plastic pollution hurts us as well. “Trash in the water compromises the health of humans, wildlife and the livelihoods that depend on a healthy ocean;” wrote a non-profit group called Ocean Conservation. If our oceans are covered in trash, everyone that relies on the ocean is going to suffer. The effect is not just in our health, it also affects our economy. Ocean Conservation also

The development of social media has been changing since 1969, the first email was sent in 1971. In 1985 AOL (American Online) was founded, which allowed us to communicate by chatting online. Today, if someone founded

The ocean’s vast marine life is dying more and more each year due to plastic. Over 100,000 marine animals die each year from plastic entanglement and ingestion says Gianna Andrews, author of the 2012 “Plastic in our Oceans Affecting Human Health” on ser.carlton. Chemicals in the plastic are also intoxicating the marine life. Reducing the use of plastic could save thousands of sea animals and make our ocean a cleaner place. There are many questions concerning our ocean, like how much plastic is in our ocean? What are the effects? How do we stop it? These questions will be answered by explaining and describing our ocean’s plastic.

A large number of marine species are known to be harmed and/or killed by plastic debris, which jeopardize their survival, since many are already endangered by other forms of anthropogenic activities. Marine animals are affected through entanglement in and ingestion of plastic litter (Marine Debris). Less conspicuous forms, such as plastic pellets and “scrubbers” are also hazardous. To address the problem of plastic debris in the oceans is a difficult task, and a variety of approaches are required. According to research conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, 14 billion pounds of trash is dumped into the ocean each year. That is more than 38 million pounds a day. More than 85% of all the trash that is dumped comes from the world’s merchant shipping fleet. According to the same research, the United States is responsible for an estimated one- third of all the trash that is dumped into the ocean (Amaral). The reason this is still going on is because the majority of the trash that is dumped is in international waters. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that convened in 1982 defines territorial waters and international waters as: territorial waters are waters extending up to 12 nautical miles from a coastal state, and they are considered to be within the jurisdiction of that particular state or ‘territorial waters’ If oceans, seas, rivers or lakes extend beyond international boundaries and are not territorial waters, they are classed as

Plastic in the Oceans: Having been to the Centers for Disease Control’s David J. Sencer Museum this past year, I was able to see the exhibition GYRE: The Plastic Ocean. The ocean has become littered with enormous amounts of plastic over the years and, in some places, entire islands can be found entirely composed of discarded or lost plastic objects. The sheer volume of new and current information currently being put forth on this topic makes it an excellent one for research.

Plastic is a huge problem to the Earth’s ecosystem, including to the marine wildlife of the oceans. It gets into our oceans in large quantities, and they pile up to a point they become an “island of plastic.” Some of which are estimated to be as big as a few million square miles, the biggest being in the Pacific ocean. This could result in environmental issues that could harm the ecosystems of the oceans. It would be eaten in small quantities by fish and by birds, which could cause many health problems that could lead to death. This is a problem that will only lead us to think more critically the waste we produce as humans. In only of a short time span of 35 years, was the oceans transformed into a landfill of plastic.

However, you are right because all of us should be concerned about this trend and join the Plastic Pollution Coalition. It is important to do it, considering that tons of plastic containers are polluting our sea, rivers, and beaches around the globe (Gould, page 175). This problem seriously affects the survival of wildlife planets and animals. Just recently I heard in the national Geographic channel that, almost 11 million tons of plastic debris and more than 15 billion of trash is being dumped in the oceans every year. Sad statistics that are breaking the natural equilibrium of our sea ecosystems and sooner or later we will be paying the consequences of our irresponsibility, ignorance, and lack of self-awareness. We must stop right now. With

Social Media is a form of communication in which a person shares information, personal ideas, and thoughts online. The foundation of social media began in 1997 when the first social media site Six Degrees was developed. Since 1997, social media has become an iconic name and has now become part of this generation's conversation. There are over 100 million people using social media to gain access to the digital world, with over 20 social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram (Milanovic 1). Roughly 80 percent of teens and 20 percent of adults use social media daily and almost half of the

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.