Ever since plastic was first introduced almost a decade ago, we have seen an increased trend in pollution, especially in the ocean. You cannot hide or run away from plastic. Plastic is literally everywhere, from the clothes you’re wearing to even the IV bags used in hospitals. Do you see the toys your children are playing with? Yes, those are also made from plastic. Plastic has made itself into an everyday essential because it’s convenient and cost effective. Plastic isn’t the only thing that ends up in the ocean.
According to the Rinkesh Kukreja, editor of Conserve Energy Future or CEF, other pollutants of the ocean are industrial waste, oil, and harm chemicals. With the current trend in pollution, marine life could easily cease to exist and certain marine organisms could end up becoming extinct. Barry Commoner, a biologist and Harvard graduate, once said “Environmental pollution is an incurable disease. It can only be prevented. ” Earlier I talked a little bit about plastic but what is plastic? I’m surrounded by plastic everyday but I don’t really know what it is. According to the Anne Marie, a Ph. D. , plastic”… s any synthetic or semi-synthetic organic polymer.
While plastic may be made from just about any organic polymer, most industrial plastic is made from petrochemicals” (Marie 1). Plastic only accounts for roughly twenty percent of the pollution in the ocean. Even though twenty percent may seem modest compared to the eighty percent, there shouldn’t be a reason for floating water bottles or rings from a six-pack to be floating around in the ocean. The floating plastic will either release harmful toxins into the water or will kill marine life by ingestion, entanglement, or alter a delicate ecosystem.
Believe it or not, technology was never as advanced as it is now which made determining the amount of plastic out in the ocean very difficult. After decades, researchers have determine the amount of plastic that floats in the open ocean annually. Scientists have determined that 15%-40% of plastic is tossed into the ocean every year. Now you have to add up all 192 countries around the world and that makes roughly four million to twelve million metric tons of plastic floating in the ocean.
Of course the number is going to be a rough estimation because a lot of the plastic could end up elsewhere such as perhaps below the surface or eating by marine life. What’s even scarier is, scientist predict within the next ten years, the amount of plastic in the ocean will have doubled. In an article released by CSIRO Australia, Dr. Wilcox and coauthors Dr. Denise Hardesty and Dr. Erik van Sebille led a study to determine just how plastic will affect marine life. The results are quite shocking because they predict by the year 2050 about 99% of the world’s seabirds will have ingested some type of plastic substance.
Researches have concluded that ninety percent of all seabirds have consumed some sort of plastic waste ranging from plastic bags to bottle caps and roughly sixty percent of seabirds already have some sort of plastic sitting in their guts. Seabirds eat the plastic because they are usually bright in color and the birds believe its food. Although the health effects of plastic consumption by seabirds have not been fully analyzed, there are negative health effects. Birds who consume plastic might suffer from punctured organs or they fill their stomach with so much plastic that there’s no room for actual food because plastic is not digestible.
The seabirds will then die slowly because they aren’t able to digest sufficient amounts of nutrients. Plastic does not just affect all seabirds. Sea turtles have also seen a decline in population as a result of plastic. In an article released by the University of Queensland, Dr. Qamar Schuyler found that fifty-two percent of turtles worldwide are consuming debris. To be more specific, they are consuming mostly plastic drifting out in the open waters. As a result of plastic pollution, three to six different species of turtles will eventually become extinct and the numbers are on a residual rise.
Ridley turtles, for example, are more prone to eating plastic because of their natural behavior and migration route. Ridley turtles are located in the deeper parts of the ocean where the plastic accumulate. Plastic is dangerous to animals because of the chemicals that make up the product and especially when animals consume it. Plastic ingestion can block the turtles’ gut or even piece the gut wall, similar to the seabirds. The highlight of this article is the statistics being provide for the amount of plastic that enter the ocean every year “four million to 12 million tons of plastic which enter the oceans annually.
If plastic only counts for twenty of percent of ocean pollution then you might ask yourself, what about the other eighty percent? Well the other percentage that contributes to ocean pollution is coming from land “eighty percent of pollution to the marine environment comes from the land. One of the biggest sources is called nonpoint… ” Nonpoint pollution could come from cars, trucks, boats, and perhaps septic tanks. Nonpoint pollution is transmitted into the ocean as a byproduct of runoffs. Precipitation carries containment the surface and transport them into the ocean.
If it rains all the oil and residue on the surface of sidewalks and blacktops will eventually find its way back into the ocean. In addition to precipitation, wind also plays a role in transporting contaminants. In a hypothetical situation, if the wind was strong enough, it could transport contaminants from land back into the water. That occurs if the land mass is close by the ocean shore. It doesn’t have to be transmitted. Chemicals being dumped into some sort of drain will also find its way back into the ocean.
The future doesn’t look too bright with the current trend or even if the trend becomes even more popular. If the trend continues for long periods of time, a lot of the animals we’re familiar with will not long be around for us to stare at. Everything in nature is balanced and if something is affected then so will everything else. If birds were to become extinct then everything below the food chain will be affected. If ocean contamination continues eventually certain species of fish will also become extinct and coral reefs will soon vanish. Certain countries depend on the fishing industry as mean of income.
In addition to fishes, if coral reefs were to die off, countries along the tropics will lose millions, even billions of dollars annual because they no longer have tourism as a mean of income. Fortunately, there are ways that can help reduce the amount of pollution in the ocean. To help reduce the amount of plastic that is thrown into th annually, you don’t need to change your lifestyle. To help reduce plastic you just simply need to recycle as often as you can. In my very own house we have trash bags filled with plastic bottles and cans that we recycle every month.
When you go shopping for food, instead of having them use plastic bags to put your belongings in, just bring a bag of your own so they don’t have to use unnecessary plastic bags. Lastly, if you really want to help the environment, you should participate in beach clean ups whenever you have free time. Well if you don’t have time but you do have kids, you can always make them participate in cleaning and make it a family tradition every once in a while. It doesn’t hurt to pick up a can or plastic bag every once in a while. Since we’re talking about the beach, if you own a pet and take your dog to the local dog beach, you need to clean up