Over 1 million aquamarine animals are killed each year by the plastic waste in the ocean.
Plastic Pollution.
Plastic pollution is a problem facing the world at the moment. There is around 51 trillion microscopic pieces of plastic in the water, combined this weighs around 269,000 tones. It takes around 450 years for this plastic to break down meaning that deposing of plastic incorrectly causes a chain of consequences for hundreds of years to come, but even after it has decomposed there is still microscopic pieces of plastic in the ocean meaning the plastic will never really go away and will forever be causing problems for the animals and us.
How does this affect sea life?
Animals think that the plastic floating about in the ocean is a food source for them and they end up eating it. This ends up causing the animal’s digestive system to become blocked as they cannot properly break down the waste. Studies from 2013 show that 50% of turtles are consuming plastic which in turn, is causing their death. It doesn’t only affect animals that live in the sea as it is also affecting the birds around as-well. For example the laysan albatross. This bird uses its beak to skim along the top of the water to catch fish. However as it is doing this it consumes bits of plastic as-well. It is estimated that 98% of laysan albatross have consumed plastic and it is damaging their digestive system and often leading to more serious problems.
How does it effect humans?
This affects humans in many different ways, one of which being the plastic entering the food chain. This means that if you are eating fish you are consuming everything that is in that fishes body. Meaning that all the plastic the fish has consumed is now in the human body. Consuming toxins that are in plastics can cause illness in the human body such as cancer, immune system problems and birth defects.
How can we stop this?
Plastic pollution is something that will probably never be truly resolved, as there will always be people looking for an easy cheap place to dump waste and it just so happens that the ocean can be this place despite the consequences that come with it. However there are ways that you can do to stop plastic pollution for example, having a reusable water bottle instead of the ones you buy at the shop and only use once, don’t use plastic straws as they are not a necessity and carry around reusable plastic bags instead of buying a new one every time you shop.
- By Emma Harris
- Sources: greenpeace,www.sas.org.uk,
