Sentientism Argument

Everybody throws away trash with little or no thought about where it’s going. What you might not know is that a lot of trash goes into our ocean. You may think it is not a big deal and that it’s just a little bit of trash in a really big ocean, but it’s not just a little bit of trash. In fact, it’s a whole lot. There is a place between California and Hawaii called the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, but is better known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. This area is the largest landfill in the world and is completely in the ocean. What are the effects of the landfill on the environment and how can it be prevented and rehabilitated to its original state?

More than six million tons of garbage finds it’s way into the oceans. Due to the currents, the garbage ends up in two different locations. Several hundred miles off the coast of Japan lies the Western Garbage Patch, and close to California lies the second patch, known as the Eastern Garbage Patch. Together these two patches of garbage mix to form the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The great pacific garbage patch, or garbage island, as many refer to it, is a region made up entirely of waste. It is around 20 million square kilometers (7.7 square miles) in size. This is the result of careless sailors and beachgoers constantly throwing what they do not want to hold on to into the ocean. The litter gets carried through a variety of currents moving in a clockwise direction into the north pacific subtropical gyre. There, it all adds up to form a pile of garbage twice the size of texas.[8]

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

In t­he broad expanse of the northern Pacific Ocean, there exists the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a slowly moving, clockwise spiral of currents created by a high-pressure system of air currents. The area is an oceanic desert, filled with tiny phytoplankton but few big fish or mammals. Due to its lack of large fish and gentle breezes, fishermen and­ s­ailors rarely travel through the gyre. But the area is filled with something besides plankton: trash, millions of pounds of it, most of it plastic. It's the largest landfill in the world, and it floats in the middle of the ocean.

Researches have found different routes that all the trash could take. According to the research by Erik van Sebilla, the trash doesn't seem to just stay in one garbage patch. Currently there are 5 major garbage patches in our ocean. Their are two in the Pacific, two in the Atlanic and there is just one the in the Indian Ocean. Sebilla stated that the the trash from the Indian Oceean to Southern Australia could end uop in the PAcific Ocean. Also the trash from Eastern South Africa most likely will end up in the Atlanic Ocean. The video demonstrates what the garbage patches are made up of. In this video it shows how most of the trash in the ocean is plastic, which never breaks down. Many wonder how and where all the trash came from. In an artical

It is 2016 and there is a lot of problems in this world. One of which are ocean's garbage patches. Well all five ocean have garage patches but the one who is bringing up more dangers in the ocean life the pacific ocean patch.

The other 20% will come from offshore oil rigs, boaters, and sometimes very large cargo ships. The debris that appears at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch varies greatly. There has been computer monitors, plastic, legos, bottle caps, plastic bags, and even lots of fishing nets. All of this trash can cause major disruptions in marine food webs and ecosystems. For example, the plastic could block the sunlight from getting to the ocean plants, algae, and plankton, this will result in the producers to suffer and then the animals that consume them will then be without a decent meal. The overall outcome of this scenario would be a smaller access to seafood and this will cause seafood prices to spike

As humans we forget how much of what we do is polluting the Earth. Dumping trash on the side of the road because you are too lazy to throw it in the trash or recycles at home can be disastrous. People may forget that wind can pick up the plastic or other floating material into the ocean. Causing you to end up polluting the ocean with non-consumable things for animals. All that pollution from others from Japan to North America pollutes and it can all build up. The place with some of the largest trash in the world in the Pacific Trash Vortex.

In the documentary “Inside the Garbage of the World”, the main social problem being explained is that there has been a great influx of plastic and other type of garbage in oceans and their beaches. This buildup of pollution has largely affected the wildlife population ranging from animals on the beaches to the creatures of the ocean. In oceans, what is called ‘garbage patches’, a large buildup of garbage that flow to one area in the oceans, are being created. Approximately 50 percent of all plastic sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor but about 2 times that much is actually already on the ocean floor. In fact, according to the documentary, there is a garbage patch that is to the left of California that is the size of half of the United States. Each year, about 4.7 million tons of plastic goes in the ocean a year and it is estimated that by 2050, there will be another 33 billion tons of plastic added to the present amount. Eighty percent of the current pollution comes from the land. According to marine researchers, twice as much plastic debris is one the ocean floor than it was 10 years ago. In the futures, plastic will break down into smaller pieces of plastic, creating a bigger problem from the habitat. This plastic pollution is one of the leading cause for beach and ocean inhabiting creatures be extinct because animals are mistaking these plastic pieces for food. When scientist began to dissect beach animals such as birds, they discovered that at least fifteen pounds of

The article describe the ocean pollution through two phenomenon-- amount of plastics occur in the oceans and doubling increased “dead zones”. In term of plastic garbage, Dahr primarily states that human behavior caused “unknown ecological and evolutionary consequences” more and more small size of plastic occurred in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, tonnes of garbage float in the ocean and to the beaches. Increase in pollution impacts on ocean’s ecological

Kitt Doucette states in his article, “The first thing you need to know about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is that its name, which conjures up images of an animated Charlie Brown special, is disgustingly inappropriate,” (Doucette) even though that is what probably comes to mind, at least for me it did until I did some research. However, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is actually a collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean. The patch is characterized by remarkably high concentrations of plastics, chemical

After careful analysis, it appears that “Can the Pacific Garbage Patch be Cleaned Up?” by Danial Stone as published in Newsweek, is a credible sources. The author, Daniel Stone, has a Masters degree from John Hopkins University in Environmental Science and Policy, and a Batchers degree from the University of California, Davis in Political science. Furthermore, Stone worked for Current Magazine, America’s Most Wanted, and was the Senior Reported for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Currently, Stone in employed as the Short-Form Editor for National Geographic. I have found no way to contact the author. While there is no citations or reference page, the information presented in this source is found in other, credible sources. After briefly

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

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a plastic waste land located in Midway Atoll. An ocean current called a gyre is what makes these plastics circulate to this specific area. This swirling soup of garbage is about 10 meters deep just below the water surface and consists of mostly non-degradable plastic.This area is twice the size of Texas and contains plastic that is made into a “goo”. Most plastics are not biodegradable so they remain in the ocean for hundreds of years and break into tiny toxic particles.These toxic particles are then mistaken by marine birds and aquatic life as food. They digest them and are unable to break them down. Some of these fish are eaten by humans and then we also exposed to these toxic chemicals as well. Although consumers already are being exposed to harsh chemicals by plastic. Humans are exposed to a harmful chemical called bisphenol A, BPA is a synthetic estrogen (and know endocrine disruptor). Consumers are unknowingly taking in these harmful chemicals and damaging their health. The use excessive use of plastic is a striking issue that is overseen and concerns us all.