Plastic Plague: Negative Effects Of Oceanic Debris

Our oceans are vast and they are some of the most mysterious and diverse places on earth. They provide food and shelter for countless organisms, they also provide a key factor to life; water. Unfortunately, pollution is dangering Marine life and slowly destroying the oceanic ecosystem. We have always had this notion that because of the sheer size of the ocean, that dumping our trash and other toxins into the sea would have no major consequences. As we have seen, that is entirely inaccurate. Oil spills, floating trash, toxic spills are just some of the various factors that contribute to the pollution of the oceans (Heimbuch, 2009).

Is plastic really that harmless innovation that saves us time and energy without any repercussions? “80% of plastic waste in the ocean originates on land, and recycling rates are poor, with just 9% of plastic in the U.S. recycled, according to the EPA.” - Kieron Marks. Massive amounts of our plastic begin on land and appear in the ocean. The majority of plastic that is in the ocean is in a microscopic form which makes the plastic extremely difficult to find let alone clean up. This affects not only the ocean life by killing 1 million sea creatures a year, but it also has effects on the fishing and the shipping industry, along with tourism. Furthermore, the pollution causes 13 billion dollars in damage to the marine environment every year. This

In 1988, it was determined that the United States alone, was producing 30 million tonnes of plastic per year (Derraik, J.G.B., 2002). This can be compared with the global and annual production of 260 million tonnes of plastic as of 2012 (Pearson, E., 2014). Plastics are lightweight, durable, and cheap to make. This makes them incredibly easy to sell and manufacture. However, these attributes are many of the reasons why plastics are the most prominent type of marine debris, and why they are a serious hazard to various ecosystems and the organisms that live within them (Derraik, J.G.B.,

Society tends to blame the fisherman for the trash that turns into marine debris. They are wrong. According to the California Coastal Commission, “Only 20% of the items found in the ocean can be linked to ocean-based sources, like commercial fishing vessels, cargo fish or pleasure cruise ships. The remainder (80%) is due to land based sources like litter (from pedestrians, motorists, beaches visitor), industrial discharges (in the form of plastic pellets and powders), and garbage management.”. Fisherman and other trained workers in the oceans are not the only

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.

A large number of marine species are known to be harmed and/or killed by plastic debris, which jeopardize their survival, since many are already endangered by other forms of anthropogenic activities. Marine animals are affected through entanglement in and ingestion of plastic litter (Marine Debris). Less conspicuous forms, such as plastic pellets and “scrubbers” are also hazardous. To address the problem of plastic debris in the oceans is a difficult task, and a variety of approaches are required. According to research conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, 14 billion pounds of trash is dumped into the ocean each year. That is more than 38 million pounds a day. More than 85% of all the trash that is dumped comes from the world’s merchant shipping fleet. According to the same research, the United States is responsible for an estimated one- third of all the trash that is dumped into the ocean (Amaral). The reason this is still going on is because the majority of the trash that is dumped is in international waters. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that convened in 1982 defines territorial waters and international waters as: territorial waters are waters extending up to 12 nautical miles from a coastal state, and they are considered to be within the jurisdiction of that particular state or ‘territorial waters’ If oceans, seas, rivers or lakes extend beyond international boundaries and are not territorial waters, they are classed as

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.

Most of the plastic from littering starts on land, but than gets carried into the ocean by rain and wind. Chemicals from plastic can be highly toxic and than our quality of the sea water will start going down. A huge source of plastic in the ocean is littering. The EPA reports “Every bit of plastic ever made still exists” and this means the plastic is abusing not just our ocean but everything in it and also never going away. According to Greenpeace, “nearly half of all ocean pollution comes from acitvities that take place on land.” People are harming the ocean, especially when bottled water companies manufacture the plastic. Carbon dioxide levels are steadily increasing harming our

But the sieve-like skimmers they use, no matter how technologically sophisticated, will never be able to clean up remote garbage gyres: There’s too much turbulent ocean dispersing and mixing up the mess.The problem is compounded by the aquaculture industry, which uses enormous amounts of plastic in its floats, nets, lines and tubes. The most common floats and tubes found in the deep ocean and on Hawaiian beaches come from huge sea-urchin and oyster farms like the one that created the oyster-buoy island. Those buoys were torn from their moorings by the tsunami that walloped Japan on March 11, 2011. But no regulatory remedies exist to deal with tons of plastic equipment lost accidentally and in storms. Government and industry organizations purporting to certify sustainably farmed seafood, despite their dozens of pages of standards, fail to mention gear that is lost and floats away. Governments, which are rightly concerned with depletion of marine food sources, should ensure that plastic from cages, buoys and other equipment used for aquaculture does not escape into the waters.But, in the end, the real challenge is to combat an economic model that thrives on wasteful products and packaging, and leaves the associated problem of clean-up costs. Changing the way we produce and consume plastics is a challenge greater than reining in our production of carbon

One of the most prevalent problems in the world today is pollution from plastic materials. The sheer amount of these materials being produced today, allow plastics to make up about 60% to 80% of the waste found on beaches and in the oceans (Derraik, 844, Barnes, 816). Each year more and more plastic is dumped into the environment. This exponential problem will only snowball into a bigger issue as time progresses. Only about 6.5% to 7.7% of the world’s 200 million tons of plastic waste is recycled and what is not recycled or transferred to landfills ends up in the oceans, that’s about 100 million tons of plastic debris entering the oceans each year (Cho, 1). This ocean bound plastic ends up in convergence zones, where the accumulation of waste

Research has shown that there is 5.25 trillion pieces of rubbish floating in the ocean and all that pollution is coming from the shore. Plastic bottles, caps and straws, grocery bags, plastic wraps, disposable cutlery, coffee-cup lids are the main items

"What Will It Take to Get Plastics out of the Ocean?"?Ensia. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 May 2016.

Discuss the cause and effect of plastic debris on seabirds? Marine population are vastly being endangered by all sorts of debris including plastic that found their way into waterways and the ocean. Seabirds have being found with entanglement around their legs and bills which affect their ability to protect themselves against predators (Ceccarelli, as cited in Australian Government Department Sustainability environment water population and communities, 2012, p. 3). Also Allen, Jarvis, Sayer and Mills remark plastic entanglement cause by fishing materials and other circle shape plastics may cause strangulation,, prevent the ability to feed themselves and even drowning (as cited in sigler, 2014). Plastic debris also crate problem with the feeding habits of seabirds, as they cannot define plastic from their normal food chain. Derraik observed that seabird diets has been affected by plastic as seabirds mistake coloured plastic debris from fish, fish eggs and larvae (as cited in Acampora, schuyler, Townsend & Hardesty, 2014, p. 1). Although as observed by

The overuse of plastics in today's society has become major environmental issue for our oceans. Plastic pollution is the dumping, littering, or disposing of any type of man-made plastic that has been produced and has ended up in our ocean and has not been recycled.

of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the exact size remains unknown. In addition, Doucette warns us that this patch contains more than ten million tons of waste. She describes the area to be a “fetid swamp of debris where tiny bits of decaying plastic outweigh zooplankton- one of the most prolific and abundant organisms on the planet- by a ration of six-to-one”(Doucette). It is now apparent that the amount of plastic particles residing in our oceans is damaging the natural habit and this trash is not going anywhere. Due to the currents in the ocean, plastic particles are