The world’s oceans make up 71% of the Earth’s surface (NOAA-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and is home to over 1 million known species of plants and animals, and scientist say there may be as many as 9 million species we haven’t discovered yet (school.discoveryeducation.com) Humans effect the ecosystem by agricultural, industrial, and household waste. ("Ecosystems." BBC News. BBC,). In turn this pollutes the waters of our oceans and all forms of life ranging from giant humpback whales, to the tuna that is commercially fished for, the coral reefs that home thousands of species of fish, and the tiny plankton that exist under the surface. Mankind has created a vicious cycle in which allows our waste to be ingested, trapped around living beings, and pollute the water quality that all marine life depends on.
Ever since its first mass production beginning in 1930’s plastic has had an impact on climate change as well as waste production. ("Plastics History." Plastics History) Plastic is made from oil. Oil is a carbon-rich raw material, and plastics are large carbon-containing compounds. They 're large molecules called polymers, which are composed of repeating units of shorter carbon-containing compounds called monomers. (Freudenrich, Craig. "How Plastic Works." 1998.) Plastic is being thrown around everywhere but mainly into the ocean. Whether it’s from natural causes or manually it still gets to places where it shouldn’t be. About 50% of the plastic we use
Ocean pollution is caused by many things,plastic,humans, and oil spills, we are trying to stop this. So many people just put the plastic in the ocean and people are trying to stop them. Two billion people within 30 miles of the coast create 100m of coastal plastic waste. We can help by reducing plastic in waste stream, and try to stop pollution. Another way we can help is by recycling (Doc.1). We cause pollution to by dumping trash and garbage onto beaches. We have to help protect oceans by monitoring the water to see if people can go swimming (Doc.2). The oceans have to stay healthy because they are a habitat to animals (OI). Another reason we have to keep oceans healthy because they are a big food source for us (OI). In
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.
There is rising unease about throwing out plastic products as well as the accumulation of plastic products in our oceans and landfills. This poses problems for all species in the environment, such as animals becoming tangled in smaller products, organisms consuming the products, or transferring chemicals directly to humans in the surrounding environment. Plastic products being dumped into landfills is not sustainable for our present and future environment. A small amount of fossil fuels is being used to create plastic products. The fossil fuels are practically wasted because the products are cheaply made and are thrown out shortly after purchase. Depleting the amount of fossil fuels, rapidly filling up landfills, and manufacturing briefly used plastic products is not sustainable for our environment. Increasing the amount of recycling, cutting down on plastic production, and reducing on the amount of littering are all valuable solutions to cut down the amount of plastic in landfills. (Thompson, Moore, vom Saal,
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 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
The alluring azure ocean, the brisk ocean waves, the lemon yellow sand all show a paradisiac view of the Tasman Sea in Australia. However looks are deceiving. Walking 20 feet from the shoreline, a nauseous view disrupts the majestic scene. I see a plethora of dirty Poland Spring water bottles on the shore. An ash colored seabird lies with a murky bag over its head, lifeless. The dead sea bird was doomed to die of human waste because plastic is being dumped in the oceans and slaying marine life.
Oceans have affected the environment by hurting animals, people, the environment itself and NOW the plants. Believe it or not, but when garbage affects our plants it also affects our animals, humans, and environment, like a chain reaction. Any plant can be affected by this pollution.
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.
Ocean pollution is one of the most urgent issues in our world today. The ocean is crucial to our ecosystem and it is being severely damaged at an alarmingly increasing rate. In this paper I will educate about the role the ocean plays in our beautiful Earth, why it is being so widely ignored and dismissed, the causes of pollution, and its effects on animals and humans alike.
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.
It was Mihaljo Mesarovic, the author of “Mankind at the Turning Point”, who once said “The Earth has cancer and the cancer is man”. He was definitely onto something. In fact, humans have had a major negative impact on the world’s marine environment. Throughout recent human history, it has been obvious that the wellbeing of the marine environment has been in jeopardy. Pollution of the ocean, overfishing and the greenhouse gases these are all the aspects that can cause the destroying of the precious environments, such as reefs, sea-grass and coastal habitats. According to the essay and interview “Seafarming at the End of the World”, written by Peter Meehan, he presents the fact that human impact on the ocean is the main reason that causes the awful situation of marine ecosystem and organisms.
Oceans are very important factors in our environment. Our Earth is 71% water and 50%-80% of all life on Earth lives in that 71% water. The ocean also contains 99% of the living space on the planet. (“The Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch”). So as you can see, the water we have on Earth has a big purpose. Oceans are some families’ vacations and are admired for their beauty. They give us food, transportation, and even oxygen, but what do we do for the ocean? We pollute it.
Although many recognize that there is a problem with plastic pollution in the ocean many are unaware of how extreme this problem actually is and how quickly it is progressing. Plastic was first introduced in the 1950’s and it only took 10 years for scientists to begin to recognize the presence of plastic in the ocean. In 1972, J.B Colton of the National Marines Fisheries Service in Rhode Island published articles in Science warning that the toxic from plastic in the ocean was at its all-time worse and he predicted that it would not be long until the toxic would affect marine animals (Moore 1). “The increasing production of plastic, combined with present waste-disposal practices, will probably lead to greater concentrations on the sea surface” (Colton 1). Later on that same year the 1972 Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act was approved and passed by the U.S. Congress in order to regulate ocean dumping of waste and provided a research program on ocean dumping. However, this does not solve the problem of the amount of plastic in the ocean. What was not realized at this time was the fact that ocean dumping was not the only
With the combination of polymers that don’t biodegrade and mass overproduction, companies are harming the environment in severe ways. Plastic, a material seen everywhere, is a polymer made from oil. It is mass produced to make everything from shampoo bottles to automobiles and does not biodegrade. When it is eventually thrown out, the waste usually finds it way into the ocean, where it is either buried under sediment or eaten by marine life (Weisman 287-295). Creating a material that will ultimately kill marine life will undoubtedly wreak havoc on the
Oceans make up seventy percent of earth's surface, and are the largest place to sustain and accumulate various species. However, humans' wastes, such as oil spill, industrial toxic wastewater, and