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Essay on One Step at a Time on Littering

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Unaware animals, including those way out in the ocean, get a ring of death wrapped around their throat from human actions. Even simple actions like throwing a can of soda into a bush beside the road or in a neighbor’s yard can eventually affect wildlife in the sea. As a whole, littering is basically depositing an item where it does not belong. Although there isn’t a person who hasn’t littered, it needs to stop before it gets out of hand.
Surprisingly, some people think littering is okay. This is not the case; there are far too many consequences. They argue that since everyone does it, why shouldn’t they? Or what difference could one person make? Another claim is that biodegradable items, such as bananas and paper towels, are okay to …show more content…

A simple action like throwing an empty water bottle out the window penalizes the world for hundreds of years. Littering impacts the economy. According to the University of Southern California, 100,000 marine animals are entangled, suffocated, or cut by rough edges each year. The majority of these cases could have easily been prevented, just by throwing trash away. Litter originates on land, where eventually it migrates to a waterway, and then into the ocean where it ensnares wildlife. Most of this trash goes into one of the five ‘gyres’ (a giant ocean based whirlpool) throughout the world. The largest, commonly known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), is located between Asia and the United States. According to National Geographic, there are approximately 1.9 million pieces of plastic per single square mile in the GPGP. The ocean debris can disrupt the food chain: Plankton is threatened, which results in fish starving. This not only puts sharks and larger marine animals in danger of starving, but it also closes businesses throughout the world. As more fishing industries are shut down, more individuals become unemployed, which results in a weak economy. Finally, and most tragically, wildlife is killed by trash. As stated by West Virginia University, “Every year, millions of birds, fish, and animals die from litter.” Many factors contribute to the demise of these animals. First, as mentioned above, marine mammals can be caught by discarded waste and slowly

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