Jersey Shore Ocean Pollution

The chemicals from Industries can quite harmful depending on what 's flowing into the water. Releasing toxic liquids directly into the water affects marine life as is, but it can also change the temperature of the water, also known as thermal pollution causing animals and plants that can 't handle that temperature to eventually die. Land run off usually happens when rain or perhaps a flood carry a harmful pollutants, which include fertilizers, petroleum, and waste from animals. One of the major sources of ocean pollution would be oil spills that can come from Ships. However, oil is not only extremely toxic, but it is very difficult to clean up. Unfortunately when there is a spill people may try to clean it up as best as they can, but a good amount will stay. Ocean mining can be extremely harmful to the ocean. They use ocean mining to drill for silver, gold, copper, cobalt and zinc, however in doing so they create sulfide deposits deep down in the ocean causing long term effects to the area. Finally, littering is another huge source of ocean pollution. Such things can include debris, especially plastic, which never goes away.

Some ways that plastic enters the marine environment can be  through improper waste management, intentional or accidental dumping and littering near shorelines or at sea, or it could even be through stormwater runoff carrying them to sea. “Plastics are used in many aspects of daily life and are a big part of our waste stream. Many plastics are colorful and will float in water, which makes plastic debris a very visible part of the marine debris problem.”(OR&R's Marine Debris)”. Plastic is used by humans everyday because it is in mostly everything. From phones to water bottles to your toothbrush. Plastic comes in many colors and can easily seen floating on the water's surface. That means that it is even easier for fish to see and be mistaken for food.

The garbage in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch isn’t only harmful to the aquatic animals that live inside it, but to the surrounding marine life as well. Several birds who depend upon fishing as their source of food are in just as much danger as the fish who live in the water. As Katherine Cooney, from the New York Times, states, “An Environmental Protection Agency study showed that the chicks that died of those causes had twice as much plastic in their stomachs. Bottle caps, combs, golf tees, toothbrushes and even toy soldiers were found inside the birds.” Cooney is trying to show that the death of these innocent birds is undeniably due to the plastic found in their bodies. An approximated 200,000 of the 500,000 chicks born there each year died from dehydration and starvation (Cooney).

In the article, "Plastic in Our Oceans", Kimberly Amaral discusses the everyday uses of plastic and how it can be beneficial to humans, but harmful to marine life. As fishermen casually dump waste overboard, animals mistake it for food sources, such as a turtle mistaking a plastic grocery bag for a jellyfish. From the trash brought out to sea, gyres, large circulations of water, carry the garbage through currents, spreading it to all over the ocean, specifically to the central gyre. Amaral notes common ways for marine life to die from plastic, which include entanglement by plastic rings, consumption of plastic bags and pellets which stuff the intestines and lead to health problems, and suffocation. As researchers today work hard to discover

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.

From the polar regions to the equator, these microplastics are everywhere (Avio, 2017). While we know there are tons of plastic in the ocean, it is difficult for researchers to give an exact amount. However, after twenty-four expeditions, a team of researchers in 2014 estimated that there are at least 5.25 trillion plastic particles weighing 268,940 tons floating in the ocean (Eriksen, 2014). They estimate that the North Pacific and North Atlantic oceans contain 55.6% of the particles found in the oceans (Eriksen, 2014). These researchers have helped give emphasis and proof as to why the worlds plastic consumption needs to be dealt with, either by banning non-biodegradable plastic all together, or by providing people all around the world with an easier way to recycle plastic.

Everything in this world we use comes from the ocean in some way. The air we breathe, the water we drink, even the products we use day to day, would not be possible without the ocean. That's why the issue of ocean pollution is so important and needs to be addressed as soon as possible. We depend on the ocean for so much in our life, without it we would surely become extinct. People seem to think that since the ocean is so large and vast, we can dump as much waste as we'd like into it and it will never have an effect on us. However, since we've been polluting the ocean as far back as Roman times, the evidence of ocean pollution becoming a major problem is all too clear.

In the documentary “Inside the Garbage of the World”, the main social problem being explained is that there has been a great influx of plastic and other type of garbage in oceans and their beaches. This buildup of pollution has largely affected the wildlife population ranging from animals on the beaches to the creatures of the ocean. In oceans, what is called ‘garbage patches’, a large buildup of garbage that flow to one area in the oceans, are being created. Approximately 50 percent of all plastic sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor but about 2 times that much is actually already on the ocean floor. In fact, according to the documentary, there is a garbage patch that is to the left of California that is the size of half of the United States. Each year, about 4.7 million tons of plastic goes in the ocean a year and it is estimated that by 2050, there will be another 33 billion tons of plastic added to the present amount. Eighty percent of the current pollution comes from the land. According to marine researchers, twice as much plastic debris is one the ocean floor than it was 10 years ago. In the futures, plastic will break down into smaller pieces of plastic, creating a bigger problem from the habitat. This plastic pollution is one of the leading cause for beach and ocean inhabiting creatures be extinct because animals are mistaking these plastic pieces for food. When scientist began to dissect beach animals such as birds, they discovered that at least fifteen pounds of

The trash we throw away is killing sea life. Pacific ocean contains over 480,000 pieces of plastic per square kilos. 500,000 ton of floating trash in the ocean. They found 9 percent of fish had ingested plastic. Of 671 fish collected, 35 percent had ingested plastic particles.

These plastic bits are so small it is almost impossible for fish and other marine life to distinguish them between plankton, which many fish and other larger animals such as whales eat (Great Pacific Garbage Patch). Many animals are consuming this trash ultimately leading to their death. For example loggerhead sea turtles it is common for them to mistake plastic grocery bags as their favorite food, which is jellyfish (Great Pacific Garbage Patch). Many other larger mammals and water birds have been strangled in plastic rings that holds canned drinks together (Great Pacific Garbage Patch). Many birds will commonly fly over the Pacific Garbage Patch, including the albatross, and unfortunately many mistake the garbage as food (The Great Pacific Garbage). A shocking number of 200,000 to 500,000 chicks that were born died, many of them having trash in their stomachs, not only plastics but also bottle caps and various items were found (The Great Pacific Garbage). It has been predicted that about 100,000 marine mammals will die from trash-related deaths per year, many pieces of plastic and garbage has been found in deceased animals’ digestive systems (Great Pacific Garbage Patch). Rusty Brainard, working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

The website divides the information into three main sections; environment, economy, and health. 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into the ocean and then accumulate in five gyres. As of 2014, there are at least 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic. A third of that is in the Great Pacific Garbage patch. All that plastic causes a huge environmental problem. One-hundred thousand marine mammals and 1 million sea birds die each year because of the pollution. Not only does plastic pollution have a major impact on the environment but it also impacts the economy. Such a large impact in fact that it causes $3 billion of damage. US West Coast spends $500 million for clean up. If harming the environment and the economy isn't enough, human health is significantly damaged. PCBs, DDTs, and other toxic chemicals in the plastics are increases a million times. Once in the food chain, the concentrations increase. Cancer, malformation and impaired reproductive abilities are all health effects linked to plastic

Ocean pollution is one of the most urgent issues in our world today. The ocean is crucial to our ecosystem and it is being severely damaged at an alarmingly increasing rate. In this paper I will educate about the role the ocean plays in our beautiful Earth, why it is being so widely ignored and dismissed, the causes of pollution, and its effects on animals and humans alike.

Seabirds that feed on the ocean surface are especially prone to ingesting plastic debris that floats. Adults feed these items to their chicks resulting in detrimental effects on chick growth and survival.8 One study found that approximately 98% of chicks sampled contained plastic and the quantity of plastic being ingested was increasing over time.9

Many individuals underestimate the amount of plastic we use each day. According to the article “Plastic Bags Wars”, “the world consumes 1 million plastic shopping bags every minute”. Plastic bags, along with many other types of plastics, have become a leading source of pollution worldwide (Doucette). Captain Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita foundation states that we use two million plastic bottles in the United States every five minutes. Discovered by Charles Moore in 1997, the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is a prime example of the amount of plastic pollution that enters the

Due to their regurgitation ability; most studies have focused on the ingestion of plastic pollution by bird, this does little harm to birds used in the studies. The effects of ingestible plastic on fish have not been studied as thoroughly and no studies have been conducted on filter-feeding organisms, which do not possess a feeding mechanism which would allow them to distinguish between plastic and plankton. Plastic pollution is only getting worse due to increasing population of developing countries. A wide variety of marine species is known to be harmed by plastic debris. This could threaten the survival of certain species, especially since many are sadly endangered by other types of anthropogenic actions.