There has been much research in the effort of how to effectively clean and recycle the plastic that has accumulated in the Great Pacific garbage patch. Many studies have found that the process of actually trying to scoop up what is now a plastic soup like substance could pose a number of issues. Some researchers say that the garbage patch could possibly be half the size of the United States which would be a huge financial challenge for any country to undertake. Charles Moore, an internationally recognized expert on marine plastic pollution and the man who discovered the vortex, says “cleaning up the garbage patch would bankrupt any country that tried it” (Moore). Not only is it a huge financial challenge, but because the Great Pacific garbage patch is located a great distance from any country’s coastline, there has not been a nation to step up …show more content…
Earth is drowning in plastic and it is time that we really dig deep on this issue as it’s already affecting the oceans ecosystem. Laws should be passed to make it illegal to dump trash in the ocean and alternative methods of trash disposal need to be sought. Used water bottles, plastic bags, coffee cups, and fish nets make up a huge portion of the Great Pacific garbage patch, this can be avoided by simply passing legislation to make it illegal to dump trash in the ocean. Raising awareness starts with informing your family and friends of what they can do to help reduce their plastic usage and explain to them why it is harmful to the environment. Reduce your everyday plastic usage such as sandwich bags, water bottles, and plastic utensils. These efforts may not sound like much to combat such a huge global issue, but in this instance educating others and developing good habits is our most powerful weapon if we to live in a cleaner, safer
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the massive and immovable region of the North Pacific Ocean bound by the North Pacific Gyre. The gyre’s rotational pattern attracts waste debris across the North Pacific Ocean. Moreover, when the waste debris imprisons in the currents, wind- driven surface currents move floating fragments slowly toward the center, and trapping them in the section.
The numbers of how much plastic and trash that are dumped into our oceans every year are sickening. According to Julie Mailto (2017) from her website Plastic Oceans, “More than 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into our oceans every year” (para. 1). Plastic debris in oceans affect more than just simply ocean plants. Around 250 species of ocean animals are affected and are known to suffer from the consequences of severe plastic pollution. Reusable plastics are a great alternative to single use plastics. By using refillable water bottles the amount of plastic waste could be drastically decreased. Not using plastic straws, silverware, and sandwich bags could also lessen the effect of waste in our oceans. Recycling is the best way to cut back on how much debris ends up in the water. I have been recycling since I can remember. If people got paid to recycle then everyone would without question. I believe recycling should be a law in our state because it already is in other states and has been shown to reduce waste pollution so I believe it needs to be implicated in ours.
Recycling and going green has been at the forefront of everyone's mind for the last 10 years. It has become a major concern to able to preserve the planet and reverse some of the damage that society has been inflicting over the last two hundred years. Everyone's concerned with emissions and electric cars but the world is in fact over two-thirds water. So naturally what society should be concerned about should be the oceans in the pollution and negative human impact that people have placed on them. Part of the problem as an initial estimate of the amount of plastic is not accurate. Not to mention incredible environmental and ecological effects the plastic has on marine life. Ocean plastic has reached a critical level where human intervention needs to take place.
Today, scientists believe the world's largest garbage dump isn't on land but it is in the
Ocean dumping and trash pollution are huge environmental health problem in the United States and around the world. Not only does the water pollution affect water we use, but endangers and kills animals and plants that use the ocean as their home or as a source of food to survive. If trash, such as plastic, makes their way into the main sewage system, they also can make their way to the ocean when water treatment system facilities are overflowed with rain water. In addition, some boater’s will dump their trash directly into the sea, which at one point was the main cause of plastic being in the ocean.
Since plastics in oceans are so damaging I think actions should be taken to help limit the effects of plastics in our oceans. Even if you are a very busy person you can help reduce the effects by using less single use plastic items like plastic bags, straws, or forks/spoons. To cut back on using so many plastic water bottles or cups, you could start using a reusable water bottle. Another method to cut back on plastic pollution in the ocean is recycling. Instead of throwing away single use plastics after using them, just throw them into the recycling bin instead to be repurposed. It helps keep the ocean clean and also reduces the amount of new plastic that gets made. If you want a less hands on way to battle the plastic pollution, you can consider
According to the article Great Pacific Garbage Patch, National Geographic explains how there us a patch of trash twice the size of Texas, but the entire patch cannot be seen with the naked eye. This article says, “For many people the idea of a garbage patch conjures up images of an island of trash floating on the ocean. In reality, these patches are almost entirely made up of tiny bits of plastic called microplastics. Microplastics can’t always be seen by the naked eye. It has been discovered that 70 percent of the trash sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor.” This quote gives you the cold hard facts on this problem. Also, “70 percent of the trash in the ocean sinks to the bottom.” Now think about all of the bottom feeders that can be harmed from this when they digest it and it gets stuck in their throat and die. So think before you decide to leave a plastic bag or plastic bottle on the beach, because you don’t know how many hundred fishes can die from one
As an introduction, Stone explains what a garbage patch is and how the Pacific Garbage Patch as formed. He then focuses on “Project Kaisei” which was a project set up to test ways of removing plastics from the Pacific Garbage patch and disposing of them safely. They found that the larger pieces were easy to remove, but the smaller pieces posed a problem. These methods included dragging nets and places trash reciprocals need areas with high concentrations of plastic that could be picked up later. The next step is to find an environmentally friendly ay to dispose of the collected plastics. One of these methods if called pyrolysis and works by turning waste into oil and other energy forms without using combustion. This process could account for 85% of the plastic currently in the Pacific Garbage Patch. Furthermore, a pyrolysis system could be mounted on a ship and taken directly to the garbage patch and loaded with plastics by other boats. Unfortunately, these are expensive systems. A cheaper option would be to concentrate the sun’s rays and highly concentrated UV lights to excel the natural beak down process. The problem with this method is that it still leaves micro plastic in the ocean. According to Stone, some want to just leave the garbage thinking that it is a better alternative to landfills. Lastly, environmental activist think that we need to prevent the problem at its source and stop manufacturing such large quantities of plastic. Moreover, we should make
After viewing the film “A Plastic Ocean” it discussed the dangers many animals in our oceans face due to plastic waste as a result many animals and organisms are dying from this catastrophic situation. In the film, they stated that “In the past ten years we have made over a million of plastic products, which are placed in the ocean”. Not to mention about eight million of plastic is dumped in the ocean every year and this is continuing to happen. A question that I have is how can we reduce the amount of plastic waste in the ocean and bring awareness to this situation? I truly believe we must come together as a community to help cease this issue. Some steps or methods I think we should use to help reduce water pollution is by recycling and disposing
Not only is there the Great Pacific Garbage Patch but there are also ocean gyres. Ocean gyres are some of the places with the largest amount of plastic located in the ocean around the world. In these gigantic gyres the water circulates like a vortex, all the trash floats to the middle and stays there. According to the excerpt Facts “The 5 major ocean gyres in the world are the Indian Ocean Gyre which contains the Indian Ocean Garbage Patch, North Atlantic Gyre, which contains the North Atlantic Garbage Patch, equal to the North Pacific Garbage Patch, North Pacific Gyre, South Atlantic Gyre, along with the South Pacific Gyre.” This proves that we have a great quantity of gyres as well as garbage patches. This debris has nowhere to go so they
Plastic pollution has reached the all-time high. According to recent research, there are already more than 5 trillion plastic pieces weighing over 250 000 tons afloat in the oceans (Eriksen et al., 2014). Sustainablecoastlines.org, a New Zealand Charity dedicated to cleaning up the island’s coastlines, estimates that 72.4% of all plastic pollution in the Pacific oceans consists of single use plastics, 22.5% of which is food wrappers, containers and bottle caps (“Our Impact”). Those numbers spell out an urgency to come up with a sustainable solution that will slow down the production of plastic debris while maintaining
Plastic is increasingly finding its way into the world ocean and now constitutes over 40% of its surface. Only about 10 percent of all plastic produced is recycled each year, and about 8 million tons ends up in our oceans ( “The Facts”). Shorelines around the world, especially around China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are littered with plastic trash and other flotsam. Trash in the ocean is also swept up by currents and clumped together to form gigantic gyres. There are potentially 11 gyres of plastic in the five major oceans around the world. The Great Pacific
The ocean is a wide space of water that houses some of the most intricate ecosystems on the planet. So with things like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch threatening the ____ of sea life, something needs to be done about the pollution in their habitat. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a floating island of trash between California and Hawaii (Rastogi). Due to the amount of trash it contains, it is nearly impossible to sweep a net throughout the “island”.There are extremely small pieces of plastic in the water which makes it difficult. Along with the trash, there are organisms the size of microplastics floating in the ocean. Garbage present in the patch can sink from a few centimeters to a few meters below the surface adding to the difficulty of determining how large the Great Pacific Garbage Patch actually is. Not all plastics dumped into the patch are microplastics. A majority of it is made up large pieces, which mainly comes from America and Asia. The rest of the garbage comes from oceanic vessels. Plastic has a major effect on the ocean, it prevents sunlight from
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the effect of the human population’s waste. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of trash floating in the ocean where there is a high density of garbage because of the Pacific Gyre. “Though their name suggests rafts of bobbing refuse, the patches are instead areas with high concentrations of trash — mostly wee bits of plastic particles that have degraded from larger pieces of litter such as water bottles. The bits amass within ocean vortices, driven by wind and ocean currents.”( Mole) The types of waste found in the garbage patch are micro plastics and macro plastics. Macro plastics can range from a few centimeters to a couple of meters, however micro plastics are only a couple of
“46,000 pieces of plastic trash float in every square mile of ocean…the whole ocean is now infected with plastic. It’s impossible to get it out” (Ellingwood). The public and the government continues to deny this statistic, as they claim it is too expensive to clean up the oceans. However such people take the ocean for granted. It is essential for them to realize that the ocean is an important part of our ecosystem, and therefore impacts all of humanity. Furthermore, not only do people harm themselves, but due to their carelessness, ignore the life of the marine creatures as well. Personal responsibility should not be the only reason for the world’s caution, because the ocean is a “lifeline of survival” for many, as it controls their jobs,