What Are The Results of Plastic Pollution of Seas and Oceans?

The beautiful sunset sinks behind the wondrous sea, the rough texture of the sand feels like warm Play-Doh. You decide to take one last dip. Finally, the last beam of light, reflecting off the water disappears; you head back to shore. When you realize something on your ankle. You start jumping up and down frantically. Soon enough you realize it wasn’t a vicious monster from the deep, you caught its soon to be lunch! That’s when you realized you have to do something. Sea debris is becoming more and more of a problem. Turning once beautiful beaches into enormous landfills. So how do we solve it. Can we?

Wait, why would anyone dump trash into the ocean. Well there really isn’t one answer. But some say, it’s the only other place to put it (mainly from places 3rd world countries). Other countries like China might say that it’s an easy way to get rid unwanted materials. China is responsible for most of the trash being deposited into the ocean with a devastating 3.53 million metric tons. The United States isn’t off the hook yet; the U.S. has deposited about 0.11 million metric tons. Obviously that’s nothing compared to China, but couldn’t we just have gotten rid of the now waterborne plastic garbage the proper way. Is it really that hard!

Now we have to understand that boats sinking also contribute to the junk being pulled out of the ocean. Even though that number is so small that we tend to forget about it. Many other accidents have happened the contribute to trash such as plane crashes, and even car and trains. You may be thinking how I can I help, I’m not the president I can’t do anything. You’re wrong! Some of the most littered things are; cigarette butts, candy wrappers/energy bars, plastic bottles, grocery bags, and straws. More than 175 billion straws are littered, most of them end up in the ocean. There are defiantly things we can do to reduce the amount of sea debris in the ocean. We could eliminate companies using straws in general, and start using coffee cups for everything. For some people that may not seem very practical, but you could be saving an innocent sea life.

Currently, over 100 million marine animals are killed each year just from plastic debris in the ocean. Conserveturtles.org says “Currently, it is estimated that there are 100 million tons of plastic in oceans around the world” It’s not just the sea animals that die from plastic. Approximately 1 million sea birds also die from plastic. Some lucky animals eat the plastic and live. However, that can become dangerous for humans because just over 100 million tons of fish are eaten world-wide each year. If the fish has plastic in its stomach, and we eat it we are eating toxic chemicals inside of the fish. Same thing if we are eating a bird (seagulls). This is becoming a grow problem across the world, people finding plastic in their fish. The plastic also releases toxins that flow freely throughout the ocean. The ocean plays an essential role for human and animal life. It provides for over 70 percent of the oxygen we breathe. Even over 97 percent of the world’s water supply. Many of the toxic chemicals are; oil, mercury, lead, pesticides, and many other heavy metals that are found throughout the ocean.

Since many/all sea life is affected by sea debris, it greatly affects the food chain. Sharks are dying because there are less sea turtles and sea lions for them to feast on. Sharks are also dying because of the same problem sea lions and turtles. Plastic! On the other hand, it’s not just plastic that sea life intake. Metals have also been found inside of fish, especially sharks. Thinking that the silvery tint on most metal is a sea lion or another sea creature. The shark will chomp it without a second glance, by the time the shark realizes what it just ate is not food, it’s too late, its already trying to be digested. Just like that the shark is slowly dying What could we do help prevent that.

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