Plastic Pollution In The Ocean And How It Affects Earth

Plastic pollution is happening 24/7 and people don’t even think twice about it. Plastic is everywhere when we walk outside it’s by the trash, under our porch, in our yard, and some may be under our houses sinking into our environment. Plastic is also clogging waterways, which is a problem there will be more flooding on the roads and it might cause plumbing problems. In addition, there might even be more plastic under all that dirt that has not decayed yet. These days we just throw a candy wrapper on the ground that is stomped on or the wind picks it up and takes it elsewhere, which starts a new problem after another. In 1907, the invention of Bakelite introduced synthetic plastic resins into world commerce. By the end of the 20th century plastic was found to be constant polluters in various environmental niches, from Mount Everest to the bottom of the sea. Scientist searching for plankton studies in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s noticed plastic pollution. Ocean and beaches are the most areas that are impacted by plastic pollution. Plastic pollution has greatly affected landfills, waterways, and sea animals. This can be reduced with a law that requires mandatory recycling in all institutions that receives federal funding.

The Mediterranean Sea is full of animals, which has a huge impact with plastic. Plastic is a versatile synthetic that is moisture resistant, well made, and extremely inexpensive. Those are the qualities that draw our attention to this. Many companies also over produce products as well. So this leads to an increasingly act of discarding, littering, and polluting. Which has become normal to people.

What is plastic pollution? The world’s population is growing every day, and more people are using a plastic item that has no meaning to it and simply toss it. We see it visibly washed up on the shore or fumbling around on the sidewalks. “For more than 50 years’ global production of plastic pollution has increased.” Millions of plastic debris is discarded each year, polluting the coasts, rivers, and other lands around the world. 

The reason plastic pollution is happening is because individuals like to litter and put debris in the oceans. We’re always surrounded by plastic because the majority of it are single use packaging. “Petrochemical plants across the United States want to turn fracked gas into plastic, which means more pollution to the air and our oceans, roughly half of the annual plastic is destined for single use.” Single use plastic is small but it causes a large impact to the places that are stated. We see so many students, office workers, etc. Using plastic bottles every day, “humans buy 1,000,000 water bottles per minute in total.” 

I often see plastic bottles empty or half-empty at the park or the lake, just sitting on the bench or the ground. Only 23% of plastic bottles are recycled which is a very low amount. Hundreds of countries have stated that they were “recycling”, but really, they were importing their plastic waste to China. Since 1992, China has imported at least 72% of plastic waste. China has eventually made the decision to ban importing nonindustrial plastic waste. Because they got tired of trying to get rid of all of the plastic that was put upon them and it started building up in that area. The counties that were “exporting their waste were the U.S., U.K, Mexico, Japan, and Germany. Now they have to deal with 111 million tons of plastic by 2030.” They have absolutely no idea what to do with it. One smart thing to do is recycle or incinerate the waste, but obviously people are inactive and won’t do anything. 

Recycling should become a law, because we are truly destroying the land. Everyone should have recycling bins next to the dumpster, it would be more convenient for them than going to a certain place to put the plastic. This would have a greater affect because it’s a big green plastic bin just sitting there and people will notice. I would say that once people notice it, it will become more useful. This this affecting the land and no one notices. The land is slowly eroding away due to plastic.

This is affecting the coasts and sea animals the most, you’ll see thousands of bird or turtle corpses on the shore. What’s awful is that when they are decomposing some of them will most likely have plastic remaining’s that never broke down, still inside of them. These animals see colors such as pink, brown, and blue, and they mistake it for their own food and consume it all the time and then it eventually suffocates them. Our oceans are struggling with single-use plastic; we have created a toxic ecosystem. “There is about 12.7 million tons of plastic per year.” “When plastic enters the ocean it doesn’t break down. Instead it shreds into smaller pieces because of the sunlight.” These are called micro plastics. Micro plastics look and smell like food. That’s why these animals are consuming so much they mistake it for their own. 

I believe it’s important to make it mandatory for all institutions to recycle because most of them receive federal funding. It wouldn’t hurt to help out a little. They have extra money so why shouldn’t they help the community to make it less toxic. It’s important to keep every land area clean to make things smoother for us and the animals. We will have less things to worry about in the world, if we just do one little thing to make it better. This can happen. I’m sure if everyone stops boycotting this and actually take action. Our environment can improve.

Taking action to this situation is how we can help improve our environment. We as a community can refuse plastic straws and bring a reusable cup when you go to a gas station and get refills. It’s cheaper with your own cup anyways. “A rally could also be effective in your city as well just give a call or send a letter to your elected leaders or the city mayor to ban plastic bags or other single-use items.” We can actually try to remove the waste when we see it in our neighborhood or on the beaches. 

A campaign could actually help as well there’s always going to be people who will want to help. If you keep running these campaigns, it will be more known and people will notice that you’re trying to do something to make a change. What we also need to do is “create a contrast” we need to give a reason for them to help. This would really work because we have skills to help the community achieve great things. 

Having a petition to make a law for this can be a huge accomplishment and will actually bring more awareness towards this problem. Having many signatures and taking it to the person who deals with the laws can see how many people care about the action you want to take. Make sure the “petition is simple and not too long.” People are lazy and will not read an essay. Once you deliver the petition, something may happen and things may change. That’s always a good start for new things. Once that happens, we can finally live in a less toxic environment and we will slowly succeeded in our mission. 

Why this won’t be a success. As we go on in our lives, people will still be littering everywhere. “Our ability to recycle is very poor” as Mathy Stanislaus states. That’s very true, not everyone will recycle. Plastic bans still fall short in many places even though governments are trying to pass laws to ban plastic pollution, it could cost more and affect environmental areas. So really “we can’t ban bad products, we have to find alternatives.” We need better recycling technology and new business models. Banning plastic without other further action can lead to something that won’t achieve anything. 

Going through each step and try to make a difference for ourselves can be a big step. We could change the way we keep the environment by picking up the trash that’s on the ground. Keeping the area clean is the best way to keep species or other living organisms alive. The waterways, landfills, oceans, and sea animals will thank us all for what we’re doing and have less of a polluted land.