Sustainability of American Lifestyle with Ocean Pollution

The ocean covers seventy percent of Earth’s surface and the ocean is extremely important to our daily lives. The ocean provides us with seventy percent of our oxygen, cleans the air, governs our whether, and provides food for millions of people. The ocean does a great deal for us but yet we thank the ocean by polluting it. Ocean pollution is a big problem and it is only getting worse. I know it is getting worse because I have even seen in increase in trash when at oceans, rivers, and lakes. Also, many studies even prove that ocean pollution is increasing. In this paper I am going analyze where is our ocean pollution coming from majority, two types of pollutions: land-based pollution and sea-based pollution, how living marine organisms suffer from pollution and solutions to help reduce ocean pollutions. Pollution is when harmful substances contaminate the environment. Pollution can affect humans, animals, and plants. Why do humans still pollute the earth if they know it harms them and our environment?

The honest answer is because majority of us do not care what happens to other people and our environment around us until it affects them or before it becomes a massive issue and as of right now ocean pollution has gained a lot of attention from us, which is positive. So, where does the majority of our ocean pollution come from? The oceans pollution majority comes from China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, and the United Sates is ranked number twenty on mismanaged plastic waste. From the article World Economic Forum published by Alex Gray writes "More than 8 million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean every year. If we continue to pollute at this rate, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. After reading this article it was discomforting to hear because that’s a lot of plastic we are mismanaging. China produces about sixty million tons of plastic each year and "8.82" tons of that plastic are mismanaged. In Indonesia "3.22" tons of plastic are mismanaged and, in the Philippines, "1.88" tons of plastic are mismanaged (Article: Countries Putting The Most Plastic Into Ocean The Oceans). Statistics prove that lots of plastic is mismanaged from different countries but mainly from Asia and the reason is because rivers carry "90 percent of plastic that ends up in the ocean". Many people that live in Asia live near rivers.

An example of this is the Yangtze river located in Asia and it is home to five million people and "it is the biggest carrier of plastic pollution to the ocean" (Article: 90% of plastic polluting our oceans come from just 10 rivers). The Yangtze, Yellow, Indus, Hai He, Ganges, Mekong, Amur, and the Pearl river is like a big bin of trash for them. These rivers are most the polluted in the world but two things they all have in common is a high population and an imperfect waste management process. All of these places such as china, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, and the United Sates are realizing that pollution/waste is a big issue and if they continued do not nothing about it, it would of only gotten worse. Recently China has made efforts to apply curb waste. Also, just recently China ended its imports of foreign garage and China has ordered many cities "to begin sorting waste in order to reach a 35% recycling rate by 2020" (Article: 90% of plastic polluting our oceans come from just 10 rivers). China trying to make efforts to help reduce plastic pollution is a big step for them and hopefully we can see more countries follow in their footsteps. Also, in India the government launched the Namazi Gange project which is to clean the Indus and Ganges river. Also, recently in 2017 the United Nations Environment Assembly singed a resolution along with one hundred ninety-three nations including (India) to reduce marine plastic waste. Reading this article shows me that many nations are trying which is marvelous, but it is still disappointing to see that we let plastic pollution get out of hand. Plastic pollution is just one type of pollution there are many more that still affect us and marine life.

We have land-based pollution and Sea-based pollution. Land based pollution would be sewage disposal, pesticide and fertilizers from agriculture, industrial waste from production facilities in coastal areas, (such as latex paint and batteries), garbage waste, and debris generated from numerous human activities (such as Carbon Dioxide). Sea-based pollutions would be oil/chemical spills from transportation of oil and accidents in the sea, offshore oil exploration facilities, disposal of non-degradable litter substances, periodic drydocking and servicing of vessels, Ballast water discharges, and deep-sea mining activities and volcanic eruptions. The main two pollutions I want to elaborate on is Carbon Dioxide pollution (land-based pollutions) and the disposal of non-degradable litter substances (Sea-based pollution). Carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere when people burn fossil fuels. Humans burn fossil fuels all the time and we do not even know that we are burning them. We burn fossil fuel when we drive, turn on the stove, warming up our house, and also lots of factories burn fossil fuels. Burning these fuels are essential to our lives because without them we could not do a lot of activities that we do today. Burning fossil fuels release greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide which trap heat in our atmosphere, and this can contribute to global warming and climate change.

Also, when carbon dioxide rises in the atmosphere the ocean absorbs a lot of it which can cause see the acidity of seawater to increase. From the article Ocean Acidification: The Ocean Portal team writes "since the beginning of the industrial era, the ocean has absorbed some 525 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, presently around 22 million tons per day". An increase in ocean acidity can cause many organisms to struggle to adopt to the high acidity and it can cause extinction on how fast our ocean acidity is rising. In 2019 it takes only forty-five days for a pteropod shell to dissolve complete. Some other living organisms such as oysters, star fish, mussels, and urchins cannot even grow there shell due to high ocean acidity and also a study was done and it concluded the high acidity was too much for oysters and they began to die/ lots of oysters were found dead. In increase of Carbon dioxide increases ocean acidity which causes a lot of harm to the marine life and someway reduce carbon dioxide is by unplugging your electronics, adjust your thermostat, stop idling your vehicle, green-clean your clothes occasionally, and do research on buying efficient appliances. Non-degradable litter substances are trash we throw away such as glass bottles, soda cans, plastic bottles, cigarette buds, and clothing fabric.

All of these man-made materials are considered non degradable substances which means they cannot decompose (takes a very long time period decompose). Non degradable substances affect marine life because in man-made materials there is Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB- compounds used in plastics, dielectric fluids), Polybrominated diphenyl (PBDE- compounds used in building materials and electronics), and dioxins. These chemicals affect marine life because plastic bottles and other trash float to the bottom of the ocean where fish and other living creatures eat. In the article Effects of Littering on Humans, Animals, and the Environment by Rinkesh writes "This can lead to poisoning of the animals by the chemicals within the wastes. The animals become unable to digest the materials and the end up clogging the digestive tracts causing painful and slow deaths". As the article stated lots of fish who eat their food also ingest/inhale dangerous chemicals and it causes harm to their body.

A crazy fact I learned is that trash in the sea can last for a long period of time. A plastic bag in the ocean takes at least up to ten to twenty years to decompose by ocean acidity. A tin can takes up to fifty years to decompose, a plastic bottle takes up to four-hundred and fifty years to decompose, and for a glass bottle it takes one million years to decompose. Non degradable substances take a long time to decompose. Man-made products have chemicals such as PCB and PBDE and that’s what harms marine life. To reduce substances/ litter in our ocean and keep marine life safe, Americans should ask for paper bags and not plastic bags, avoid buying excessive plastic packaging, recycle, and pickup mismanaged waste/trash. Many types of Pollutions harm marine life and many living organisms are dying due to our mistake. Marine life suffers greatly from pollution whether it be land based pollution or sea-based pollution. All pollution has an effect on marine life. Pollution kills our fish, birds, destroy habitats, and it can wipe an entire species which can cause extinctions. Pollution is destroying our ocean and also our environment.

If Americans continue to let pollution get out hand, we are not going to have any living marine organisms in our oceans and pollution can cause us/Americans to certain diseases, allergies, and it can even lead us to shorter life span. In conclusion pollution is getting worse. We can see this in our environment, there is a lot more of mismanaged trash in our streets, near oceans, and basically everywhere Americans go. Doing research on ocean pollution made me realize that I can help prevent different types of pollutions just by following these steps which are picking up trash, unplugging my electronics, cutting down on plastic use, being aware of what chemicals I use outside, volunteering to clean up your local community, conserving water, turning off vehicle rather than letting it run, and educating your friends and family about ocean pollution. Ocean pollution is a big issue now and it is up to us humans to work together and reduce pollution and find new solutions. In order for pollution to get better it starts with us humans. We must realize that by littering we are hurting our environment, oceans, all animals, plants and even ourselves. Let us continue to educate ourselves and others around about the effects of pollution. If the world works together on reducing pollution it still would be challenging but it is very achievable.