Research: Plastic Pollution in Water

It has a direct and deadly effect on wildlife. Plastic debris, laced with chemicals is often ingested by marine animals and can injure or poison wildlife. Cattle and other animals are ingesting it, a substance that doesn’t break down, piling up within them. Thousands of marine mammals are killed after ingesting plastic mistaking it for food or getting caught in it. The marine animals mainly affected are: sea turtles, ingesting plastic; seals and sea lions, entangled in packaging; seabirds like the Laysan albatross, ingesting plastic; fish, consume and breath plastic; also whales and dolphins, consume 31% of the marine plastic

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.

The problem with plastic ending up in the ocean is that marine life is being harmed by the presence of it. A study done on the harbor seals in the Netherlands found that more than 12% had plastic in the digestive system (California Coastal Commission). The list of affected species indicates that marine debris is affecting a significant number of species. It affects at least 267 species worldwide, including 86% of all sea turtle species, 44% of all seabird species, and 43% of all marine mammal species (Save our shores). The problem is underestimated because the marine life that ingests plastic or dies from entanglement often goes undiscovered due to the vastness of the ocean, as they either sink or are eaten by predators before they are discovered (Plastic Debris). The potential harm from ingestion of plastics is not restricted to seabirds. Plastic bags drifting on ocean currents resemble the prey of turtles. There is evidence that their survival is being hindered by plastic debris with young sea turtles being vulnerable (Ocean pollution). Over the past 20 years polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have polluted marine food webs at an increasing rate, and are prevalent in seabirds. Though their adverse effects may not always be apparent, PCBs lead to reproductive disorders, increase the risk of disease and alter hormone levels. These chemicals have a detrimental effect on marine organisms even at very low levels and plastic pellets could be a route for PCBs into marine food

Some ways that plastic enters the marine environment can be  through improper waste management, intentional or accidental dumping and littering near shorelines or at sea, or it could even be through stormwater runoff carrying them to sea. “Plastics are used in many aspects of daily life and are a big part of our waste stream. Many plastics are colorful and will float in water, which makes plastic debris a very visible part of the marine debris problem.”(OR&R's Marine Debris)”. Plastic is used by humans everyday because it is in mostly everything. From phones to water bottles to your toothbrush. Plastic comes in many colors and can easily seen floating on the water's surface. That means that it is even easier for fish to see and be mistaken for food.

In the article When the Mermaids Cry” The Great Plastic Tide by Claire Le Guern Lytle, she wrote “For more than 50 years, global production and consumption of plastics have continued to rise. An estimated 299 million tons of plastics were produced in 2013, representing a 4 percent increase over 2012, and confirming and upward trend over the past years” This means that more and more trash is added to the 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic floating in the ocean. Almost everything around us is made out of plastic, this is later misused and ending in the wrong place. The Center for Biological Diversity wrote “In the first decade of this century, we made more plastic than all the plastic in history up to the year 2000. And every year, billions of pounds of plastic end up in the world’s oceans. Most ocean pollution starts out on land and is carried by wind and rain to the sea. Once in the water, there is a near-continuous accumulation of waste.” Our plastic is misplaced and it escalates from there. However, plastic pollution hurts us as well. “Trash in the water compromises the health of humans, wildlife and the livelihoods that depend on a healthy ocean;” wrote a non-profit group called Ocean Conservation. If our oceans are covered in trash, everyone that relies on the ocean is going to suffer. The effect is not just in our health, it also affects our economy. Ocean Conservation also

In the article, "Plastic in Our Oceans", Kimberly Amaral discusses the everyday uses of plastic and how it can be beneficial to humans, but harmful to marine life. As fishermen casually dump waste overboard, animals mistake it for food sources, such as a turtle mistaking a plastic grocery bag for a jellyfish. From the trash brought out to sea, gyres, large circulations of water, carry the garbage through currents, spreading it to all over the ocean, specifically to the central gyre. Amaral notes common ways for marine life to die from plastic, which include entanglement by plastic rings, consumption of plastic bags and pellets which stuff the intestines and lead to health problems, and suffocation. As researchers today work hard to discover

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.,

Plastic 6-pack rings get caught around marine birds and other ocean animals, strangling them”. Once these are in the ocean it can take up to 400 years for the plastic to decompose. This plastic waste is causing animals to die as quickly as you can even say the word, “die”. The trash and plastic that is in the ocean is starting to impact the many different

Over the few years, humans have discarded millions of tons of garbage into the oceans. Ever wonder where the cup you threw out this morning will end up? Or the plastic spoon you used for lunch? How about the cap of a water bottle? The calamitous plastic ends up in the water, taking thousands of years to decompose. The consumption of plastic by the marine life is perilous and the leading cause of death for life on shore.

One of the issues that is currently harming the ocean is the presence of pollution. Studies have shown that over the past thirty years, people have increased their use of plastics and synthetic materials and recently it has become even more abundant (Laist). The amount of plastic debris that has entered the ocean is partially due to people 's inability to properly dispose of plastic and waste. This has immeasurable effects on the physical ecosystem, as well as the creatures who inhabit it. While plastic is very buoyant, it takes a very long time to degrade, and it is usually eaten by

“Around 260 million tons of plastic is produced every year, approximately 10% of this ends up in oceans. This litter is frequently consumed, often with fatal effects, by marine animals and birds who mistake it for food. The Trash Vortex of the Northern Pacific ocean is a patch the size of Texas consisting of trillions of pieces of decomposing plastic.” (Geer) Water pollution often directly correlates with other natural recourses that is being harmed by the same

Plastic is one of the major resource humans use to pollute the earth. Some scientist believe that the more plastic being added to the ocean the more polluted it becomes. According to Tobias Kukulka, a physical oceanographer by University of Delaware stated in, Plastic below the Ocean Surface, "You have stuff that's potentially poisonous in the ocean and there is some indication that it's harmful to the environment, but scientists don't really understand the scope of this problem yet." What Tobias Kukulka is trying to tell us is that the more plastic we put into the ocean, soon it drifts from the ocean onto the surface and that’s causing animals to mistake plastic as food. Working with collaborators at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and University of Washington, Kukulka used computer modeling to look at the effect that waves,

To marine life, plastic is like a poison. Filter feeders suck the tiny particles up resulting in their bodies being marred. Some animals eat the plastic which sometimes poisons them or leads to fatal blockages. Because there is a lot of predation in the ocean, the poison that encompasses the bodies of marine life affects the entire food chain (Silverman). The accumulated plastic and trash sometimes wash ashore, affecting beaches and oceans all over the world. This damages boat and submarine equipment, litter beaches, dissuades swimming and harms the

Ocean pollution has been a difficult thing to measure and for the public to be concerned about. Most of the concern has only ever been on the shore level where people can physically see pollution collecting. There is a difficult to get people interested and a problem that happens hundreds of miles out where very few people will ever see the plastic collecting on the surface of the ocean. Funding for research to acquire accurate numbers on plastic pollution understand how it affects the environment of these marine organisms has probably been delayed because of the lack of interest people have trouble associating why the oceans are important for them. The truth currently there are no actual models to estimate the distribution of plastic the ocean, these models use data from surface

Due to their regurgitation ability; most studies have focused on the ingestion of plastic pollution by bird, this does little harm to birds used in the studies. The effects of ingestible plastic on fish have not been studied as thoroughly and no studies have been conducted on filter-feeding organisms, which do not possess a feeding mechanism which would allow them to distinguish between plastic and plankton. Plastic pollution is only getting worse due to increasing population of developing countries. A wide variety of marine species is known to be harmed by plastic debris. This could threaten the survival of certain species, especially since many are sadly endangered by other types of anthropogenic actions.