preview

The Effects Of Ocean Pollution On The Ocean

Better Essays
Open Document

Monsters- Destroying What Sustains Us Some think of the ocean as a place of peace, or a getaway from our busy lives. Others think of it as where two worlds, aquatic and terrestrial, collide. No matter what you think of the ocean, it has sustained us for as long as we could possibly remember, and provided us with life. The ocean has provided everything we need to survive, and to repay it, we decided to destroy it. We have become monsters, demolishing what matters to us most. Over the past few decades, the amount of ocean pollution has rapidly increased, and has negatively affected the various species of sea creatures and plants. There are many different types of ocean pollution, including marine debris, ocean acidification, oil spills, and …show more content…

If we continue to carelessly spill oil into the ocean, not only will it obliterate coral, it will also leave large quantities of ocean life without shelter or food. If we continue to ignore all of the oil we are putting into the ocean, the aquatic life both on the shore and underwater will continue to deteriorate. Many of us think that there is a simple solution to ocean pollution, that solution being recycling. We don’t think that recycling is difficult, or would take much effort, so we often overlook it. Unfortunately, it takes more work than we think, and out of the 33.6 million tons of plastic we discard each year, less than 8% is actually recycled (“What Happens To All That Plastic?” Cho, Renee, http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu). That means that we throw about 30 million tons of plastic into the ocean and landfills every single year, and that number is bound to increase, as it is such a huge part of our daily lives. In our world, we are practically surrounded by plastic, when you think about it. Every day, many of us use grocery bags, bottles, straws, containers, toys, and that list has continued to grow. When we use plastic products, we aren’t thinking about the long term problem of what happens to it, or where it ends up; and that just goes to show how much plastic has really taken over our lives. A large quantity of the plastic that we use we only use once and then throw away, leading to a surplus of trash in the oceans. All of that trash causes huge problems for

Get Access