preview

Essay about Plastic and the Ocean

Decent Essays
Open Document

Plastic and The Ocean
Could Alexander Parkers, the German chemist-scientist, expect that his great invention of plastic in 1862 will turn nowadays as an ecological catastrophe? In August 1997, after a regatta in Honolulu Capitan Charles Moore, today is scientific and researcher, decided to safe time and sailed straight to California through the North Pacific Gyre, a giant watery desert without any wind. He was terrified by the view that he saw around his yacht, which navigated through infinite debris of floating plastic, hundred of miles across to the horizon. Thus was discovered the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, which is a result of human civilization. Since 1950, when people have begun using plastic products vastly, it is difficult to …show more content…

Therefore, it is an incorrect representation that the garbage patch is as an island of plastic on which it is almost possible to walk. The floating waste is composed of very small pieces and is similar to a “plastic soup”. It corresponds to the area, possibly, twice the USA (chaskor.ru). Charles Moore, the American oceanographer, believes that in this region turns about 100 million tones of floating stuff (Greenberg, Nell 1).
By polluting the ocean, plastic certainly makes harmful effect on flora and fauna. According to estimation of The United Nations Environment Program, plastic is a cause of death of 100,000 marine mammals and one million birds every year, including the albatross (Doucette, Kitt 2). Sea birds swallow plastic cigarette lighters, disposable forks, toothbrushes and bottle caps, mistaking them for fish. Turtles chew plastics bags instead of seaweed. Tiny fragments of plastic are the real threat to respiratory system of whales, dolphins and other sea animals.
One more problem is that plastic does not decompose or photo-degrade. It just splits into small pieces and remains in the ocean as an invisibly poisonous powder. Small jellyfishes and shellfish ingest this toxic dust. They are the basis of the oceanic food web, which passes farther up the food chain. "The possibility of more and more creatures ingesting plastics that contain concentrated pollutants

Get Access