Plastic Dumping Plastic In The Ocean

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

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.

Plastic comes in innumerable shapes and sizes; it is used for various purposes. We use it to bag our groceries, pay with it, drink from it, occasionally eat off it or unwrap it to get to food, etc. The functionality of plastic is continual and surrounds us, so what is the con of plastic? When plastic cups, bottles, and bags are abandoned in the street, the wind transports and the rain seizes them into storm gutters, tributaries and eventually the ocean. When rubbish and plastic originate from terrestrial territory and enters the sea it is swept away by an eddy vortex called the North Pacific Gyre. Charles Moore discovered the North Pacific Gyre, or also known as “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” in 1997. This garbage patch stretches hundreds of miles off the shoreline of California and Hawaii. Scientists estimated its size to be twofold the size of Texas or maybe even more substantial. This garbage patch contains some ten million tons of litter. According to Lindsey Blomberg, who wrote the article titled The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, writes, “What is known for certain is that the marine debris in the North Pacific Gyre is 80% plastic and it's mostly coming from land.” (1) Although the trash is in the ocean, it not only affects us but, wildlife on land or in sea too. Furthermost of the waste in the ocean consists of "microplastics" which according to Kitt Doucette, who wrote the article titled An Ocean Of Plastic is, “Larger chunks of waste that have been reduced to tiny

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.

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

Ocean dumping can affect the environment in many ways. The environment in the ocean gets affected especially for marine life.

There is a place called the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, which weighs 7 million tons, and twice the size of Texas. This makes me feel disgusted that some humans don’t care about the environment. I am writing this essay, because it makes me frustrated that animals are dying, because of plastic we have created, accident, or on purpose, this is a huge problem. With this information, please spread awareness of saving wildlife and our oceans. I am going to be talking to you about the follow topics: First, what is the ocean trash problem, second, how does this ocean trash impact the health of our oceans and animals, and finally, what can we do to resolve this ocean trash problem. Let’s get started with figuring out why this ocean trash problem is

Pollution is tearing the world apart weather it is the carbon dioxide that is pumped into the atmosphere by cars and other machinery, or deforestation and depletion of natural resources but a secret killer is on the loose. Scientists say that there is more than 5 trillion pieces of plastic in the oceans and that number is rising rapidly. Charles Moore’s idea of a cleaner ocean is to stop plastic dumping, The Ocean Cleanup and Richard Grant deepen his idea worth spreading by providing facts about plastic and its harmful effects on marine life.

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.

The great Pacific garbage patch has two different locations, one in the eastern and one in the western of the garbage patch. In order to clean up the garbage in the ocean.

There are many forms of pollution that occur from oil spills, radioactive wastes, urban air pollution, the release of greenhouse gases, or agricultural pollution, and one of the most preventable, plastic pollution. Plastic pollution is an accumulation in the environment of man-made plastic products to the point that they become problematic and harmful to wildlife, wildlife habitats, or human populations. This accumulation is due to the excessive use of plastics, which has become a worldwide issue, and is accountable for approximately 10% of discarded waste. It has been calculated that 275 million metric tons (MT) of plastic waste was produced in 192 coastal countries in 2010, with as much as 12.7 million MT entering the ocean (Jambeck et al., 2015). Plastic pollution can be classified based on the overall size and thickness, as microdebris (2 µm), mesodebris (1-5 mm), or macrodebris (>20 mm). Plastic can be very harmful to the land, waterways, and the ocean due to its extremely slow biodegrading process, which can exceed hundreds of years. Plastic debris can also be harmful to marine life causing, entanglement, ingestion of plastic waste, and exposure to the chemicals within plastics, which ultimately affect humans as well.

Our waste such as plastic and contaminated water makes its way to the ocean. There, it has a devastating effect on marine life. “5.25 trillion plastic particles weighing some 269,000 tons are floating on the surface of the sea” (Seltenrich). In Seltenrich’s article, “The World Bank estimates that 1.4 billion tons of trash are generated globally each year, 10% of it plastic.” “Plastics that reach the ocean will gradually break down into ever-smaller pieces due to sunlight exposure, oxidation, and the physical action of waves, currents, and grazing by fish and birds.” (Seltenrich). A marine life that is mostly affected is the sea turtles. The sea turtles either consume the plastic or become trap in it, or even both. According to Lowenberg, ingestion of plastic can “result in poor health, reduced growth rates and reproductive output, or death”. Their nesting sites and the baby sea turtles are also at risk. The baby sea turtles can become trap to the plastic as they make their way from the polluted shore into the ocean.

Imagine chicken noodle soup. Delicious, right? With its chunks of chicken, noodles, and carrots all mixed together thanks to a delicious broth. Now, imagine this as the ocean. What should be clear water is now cloudy broth with chunks of plastic, fishing nets and shoes strewn about the mix. This is what Captain Charles Moore saw when he stumbled across the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In 1997, Moore took his research vessel through a stretch of the Pacific Ocean called the North Pacific High while traveling from Hawaii to California. He discovered a “thin plastic soup … lightly seasoned with plastic flakes, bulked out here and there with ‘dumplings’: buoys, net clumps, floats, crates, and other ‘macro debris’” (Moore 4). The small plastic pieces are due to photodegradation, which is the process of the sun breaking larger plastics into tinier and tinier pieces (Turgeon). It was estimated in 2014 that there are some 2,000 billion pieces of plastic just on the surface of the North Pacific Ocean, although the true number cannot be calculated (VOX). Moore’s estimation of the weight from the surface plastics he saw in 1997 was some 6.7 million tons, the same amount of trash dumped into the largest landfill at the time in Los Angeles (Moore 18). Moore’s discovery led to a flurry of research on the causes and possible solutions. The most effective solution for cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is to use detainees of American prisons and

Plastic is a common result of human negligence. Plastic within the ocean threatens the natural marine biodiversity. Due to this, at certain depths of the oceans, many marine species are becoming extinct due to plastic pollution. People who consume marine cuisines are also risking getting poisoned by the harmful plastics as they contain hazardous substances. With activities such as fishing, there is a chance that fish are infected which can potentially work their way into consumers households, carrying health problems with them (Mehnazd, J. 2016). Destruction of the ocean doesn’t just include the high seas as many shores and beaches result in plastic infestation. With certain congested

Each and every day, we are surrounded by plastic. Plastic is found in our disposable pens, utensils, water bottles and so much more. To be exact, 300 million tons of plastic are produced each year. To humans, the abundance of reliance on plastic is no catastrophe for it is harmless. However, for marine life, plastic can be fatal because they mistakenly ingest it when 8 million tons swims its way into the ocean each year (Plastic Oceans). For instance, “fish in the North Pacific ingest 12,000- 24,000 tons of plastic each year” (Wabnitz). Twelve thousand tons of plastic should not be afloat in the ocean simply chilling waiting for a fish to indulge itself with; clearly, we have a problem. Fish however are not the only species impacted by plastic, Sea turtles also mistake floating plastic for food. Current research indicates that “fifty percent of sea turtles’ ocean wide have ingested plastic” and the number will continually grow without our intervention (Wabnitz). Large aquatic creatures are not alone in the battle against plastic, small invertebrates are also at risk, “sixty percent of surface plankton net tows conducted in the western North Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea also contained buoyant plastic pieces” (Ocean Plastics Pollution). With thousands of oceanic creatures ingesting plastic resulting in traumatic deaths from internal bleeding and puncturing of internal organs, plastic pollution in our oceans clearly is a threat to the ocean’s ecosystem.