Plastic Pollution in the World's Oceans: Effects and Dangers to the Environment, Man and Marine Animals.

http://www.plasticoceans.net/. This website, Plastic Oceans, advocates the seriousness of plastic in our oceans and its harmful effects. Plastic pollution poses as a danger even to our economy. It costs the state of California an estimated $72 million per year to collect and dispose of one-time use disposable cups and bags. In addition, it costs California an estimated $52.2 million per year to attempt to keep our beaches clean. In total, the current annual costs to public agencies for litter prevention, cleanup, and disposal is $375.2 million. 1 million plastic cups are used just on airline flights in the US every 6 hours.  2 million plastic beverage bottles are used in the US every 5 minutes. Simple proper recycling can lower the percentage of plastic getting into the oceans and causing harmful effects.

Most of the plastic that invades our oceans isn't biodegradable so this means that once it arrives, the majority of plastic pollution will affect the marine ecosystem for decades or even centuries. Floating plastic particles look like food to many marine species – including the fish that we eat. Animals can suffocate on plastic pollution, such as plastic bags and six pack holders, which can block air passageways and/or inhibit normal growth patterns. A common example includes sea turtles who try and ingest plastic bags, mistaking them for jellyfish (their favorite food). Often the plastic bag is too large for the animal to digest and the turtle will suffocate. Compounds found in some plastics have been linked to cancer and hormone disruption.

           Plastic pollution is a symbol of our global over-consumption crisis. We must shift our societies away from disposable habits that poison our oceans and land by eliminating our consumption of throwaway plastics, and embracing a culture of sustainability. The most effective way to stop plastic pollution in our oceans is to make sure it never reaches the water in the first place. Despite the fact that only 0.05% of plastic pieces from surface waters are pellets, they comprise about 70% of the plastic eaten by seabirds. These small plastic particles have been found in the stomachs of 63 of the world's approximately 250 species of seabirds. Ocean pollution affects at least 267 species worldwide, including 86% of sea turtle species, 44% of all seabird species, and 43% of marine mammal species.

 

Here is a gorgeous film by Disney displaying the true beauty of the oceans and its animals.

Plastic Bottle Pollution in the Oceans, Lakes and Rivers

Week One: Plastic Bottles

To commerce my project, I have come up with a list of topics that I will be particularly focusing on and the list goes as: plastic bottles in the ocean, paper towels usage and last but not least, electricity wastage. These are the first three topics I have chosen and I plan to add at least two more topics to the list as I move on deeper into my research. This week, I was focused on plastic bottles. My first step was finding a way to not only research about what plastic bottles are doing to different bodies of water all over the world, but also how to get my fellow peers involved in my project. I want to set up an experiment in my school where I will hang up posters advising students to properly dispose all bottles that they use. This experiment will test how concerned humans are about their environment and if they are willing to improve it. The posters will as well provide students information on how plastic bottles among other materials are polluting our water.

From research gathered from different websites on the internet, I have learned that just one out of five water bottles is put in a recycle bin. This fact makes me feel depressed because how is it difficult for a person to walk/drive/ride to a store and buy a product containing a plastic bottle but finds it tough to walk for about five seconds to dispose the plastic bottle? This shames the human race and shows how careless and ignorant we are towards the world we live in. Another piece of information learned from my research is that plastic takes about 700 years to decompose. I recently watched a Brita (water filter company) commercial and the narrator stated that America uses enough water bottles to go around the world 230 times. Therefore, if it takes plastic 700 years to decompose but there is enough plastic to go around the world 230 times, then that means it would take more than billions of years for the world to be cleansed of plastic. Moreover, every day people are throwing more and more plastic to the environment so it is impossible to imagine when our oceans will be clean of plastic pollution. The average American consumes 167 bottles of water a year but if he/she is only putting one out of five of the bottles in the garbage, then that means the average American puts 33 plastic bottles in the garbage bin yearly. Since there are approximately 314 million people living in America, after computing the math to find how many plastic bottles America uses yearly, the answer that I found was nearly 52 billion which is a close approximation to the number 50 billion that many websites revealed to be the actual approximated number. With 50 billion plastic bottles being used yearly, 38 billion plastic bottles are wasted each year in America. These bottles normally end up on the streets and sidewalks and then swept by rain, wind and people into the ocean, beaches, rivers and lakes.  After plastics enter the marine environment, they slowly break down into smaller pieces that marine life can mistake for food, sometimes with fatal results. Plastic pollution in our oceans and seas kills 1.5 million marine animals each year. 

I have been creating posters for plastic bottle recycling and I will be putting up these posters all over the school eventually. I plan for the plastic bottle project to run from now until May and this will be when I will gather up all the data and formulate a conclusion if raising awareness of the dangers of not recycling plastic bottles will or will not raise the number of plastic bottles being recycled.

On a side not, my concern with plastic bottles polluting the earth began when I was a young kid. Whenever I would walk to the market place, I would recognize large amounts of plastic bottles lying around on the road especially flooding the market place area. Some plastic bottles were clammed up together and they were causing other wastes on the ground to build up and make an awful, smelly scene. I loathed walking by all the plastic bottles especially since I knew that they might be germinating the food being sold in the market place. For this reason, I am ambitious to carry out this first part of my project and cannot wait to see the result. I am hoping for the best.