Landfill In America

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

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.

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.

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.

150,000 tons of plastic are littered into our ocean each year, yet we do nothing to stop it. Plastic is capable of being deformed continuously and permanently in any direction without rupture, making it almost impossible for the plastic to disintegrate. Our population uses plastic for almost everything, once these objects are used they are left in the street, beaches, and other places, natural sources then carry the objects into the oceans. There, the plastic becomes stuck in currents, where it takes years to disintegrate. The only people benefiting from this are companies who produced the plastic. The problem is this plastic is harming marine life. Some simple solutions to this include using reusable water bottles instead of plastic water

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.

“During the 20th century the Earth’s surface and lowest part of the atmosphere warmed up on average by approximately 0.6°C”, (Tolan and Berzon, 2005:91). Alongside this, man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, which also include carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased. This is primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels for energy, transportation and land use changes including; deforestation for agriculture. “There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has been caused largely by human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels”, (Royal Society, 2010:1, cited in Joffe and Nicholas, 2013:17).

For decades, oceans have been one of the biggest dumpsters used throughout the world. Plastics among other pollutants have affected our oceans and freshwater as well as marine life. Plastic pollution effects not only the ocean and its’ marine life, but humans as well and not just in the United States, but everywhere. Landfills are running into water systems every day, carrying more plastics and trash into all of the oceans. For instance, in the Mediterranean Sea, sewage is untreated and that totals eighty percent. Sewage can lead to eutrophication, which is an enrichment of chemicals in an ecosystem, but it can cause human diseases as well. (Oceans) In reality, exposure to all marine organisms will be some sort of toxin or chemical, whether it is from the ocean or contaminated from human chemicals like pesticides. Deliberately dumped plastics and toxins spread into water systems daily. During the 1970’s dumping radioactive waste, chemical weapons, pesticides, and plastics have been disposed into oceans. The reason being was that people believed that since the oceans were so big that all the pollutants should be diluted, broken down, and dispersed throughout the ocean floor. In reality after disposal has continued for years, not a single pollutant has disappeared. In fact, 80% of plastics float, which means they will float for years until someone has picked them up or they have been broken down into smaller parts of oceans. Ocean pollution should end, even if it is recycling

America tries to sound green and eco-friendly, but we only recycle 34.3 percent of our waste (EPA, 2013) and 12 percent goes to energy recovery (EPA, 2011). Of what we produce before recycling, paper takes the lead at 27 percent, followed by food at 14.6 percent, yard trimmings at 13.5 percent, plastics at 12.8 percent, metals at 9.1 percent, rubber/leather/textiles at 9 percent, wood at 6.2

Plastic plays a major role in ocean dumping. Around 8 million metric tons of our plastic enters the ocean from land each year. Animals like sea turtles become entangled in plastic rings from dumping trash in the ocean. Birds can mistake trash or toys for food, so they end up eating it and they can die. Sea mammals risk dying out because of ocean dumping. Millions of tons of plastic is dumped in the ocean and affects the lives of animals or birds. So animals, or birds don’t die out people should start taking trash to a landfill instead of dumping it into 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.

Plastic harms the ocean and everything in it. National Geographic says that over eight-million tons of plastic are dumped onto the ocean every year. That means that over one-hundred million marine animals die from plastic debris every year. Humans are also getting hurt from plastic. Scientists at Ghent University in Belgium recently discovered that people that eat the average amount of seafood are eating up to eleven-thousand plastic fragments in their seafood each year. So next time you bite into a piece of fish think about the plastic you may also be eating. How would you feel if you couldn’t eat fish without getting sick? That’s what it could come to

Every year almost 300 million tons of plastic is produced worldwide and 8 million tons of it are found in the ocean. This happens because plastic cannot decompose due to the fact that it is a synthetic material. When these plastic materials are polluted into the ocean and broken down they’re absorbed by smaller fish and entered into our food chain. If they’re not ingested they can remain in the ocean or ground for thousands of years. People should be against the mass use of plastic because it can cause pollution in the ocean, it never goes away, and it can harm animals, people, and the environment.

Ever since its first mass production beginning in 1930’s plastic has had an impact on climate change as well as waste production. ("Plastics History." Plastics History) Plastic is made from oil. Oil is a carbon-rich raw material, and plastics are large carbon-containing compounds. They 're large molecules called polymers, which are composed of repeating units of shorter carbon-containing compounds called monomers. (Freudenrich, Craig. "How Plastic Works." 1998.) Plastic is being thrown around everywhere but mainly into the ocean. Whether it’s from natural causes or manually it still gets to places where it shouldn’t be. About 50% of the plastic we use

The amount of money needed to clean up the pollution of plastic in the ocean would amount to at least 30 billions US dollars per year. The majority of the plastic polluting the ocean is due to plastic bags which people throw away. The pollution of the environment would endanger animals since they may eat it. Then, others would not make the teeniest effort to recycle because they would think that they are too insignificant to make a change. However, they would be able to make a change, if they desired to do so, since they can just use a little tiny effort as to place the plastic bags inside the recycling bins compared to the regular trash bins. However, there isn't such a perfect world, so people would litter and cause pollution which would deceive animals that mistakenly eat the waste. Animals like turtles and dolphins would mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and would choke on it. This