Annotated Bibliography
"An Ocean Of Trash." Scholastic Action 33.12 (2010): 16. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 31 Jan. 2014.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest garbage dump in the world. According to estimates made by experts, the patch holds approximately three and a half million tons of garbage. Majority of this garbage is made of plastic. This waste is a threatening problem to the patch’s surrounding wildlife. Many animals are caught in the floating pieces of trash and it is the cause of the deaths of about one million birds and about one hundred thousand other sea animals. Due to the oceans nature and constant moving currents, the trash is also constantly moving. Therefore the size of the patch never stays the exact same. However, scientists believe it be approximately two times the size of Texas. The plastic is mostly broken down from larger materials into small pieces. The patch has been referred to as one scientist as a, “plastic soup”. This garbage poses such a threat mainly because it does not biodegrade. These plastics will be in the ocean essentially forever. Many plastics also contain chemicals, and absorb other chemicals and pollutants they become exposed to. These newly absorbed toxins are then leaked and distributed back into the ocean over time. The chemicals can directly enter the bodies of the animals which consume them. A study was being conducted by scientists of the fish that inhabit the area around the patch. What the researchers found inside the belly of one fish (that was no larger in size than that of a finger), was eighty four small fragments of plastic. It does not take scientists to recognize the impact of this problem, Zach Gold, who is sixteen, is from Santa Monica California. Zach enjoys s...
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...stic breaks down into smaller bits that are not as easy to spot. These small pieces are then consumed by the oceans small organisms that are also the bottom of the oceans food chain. Once it enters the ocean food chain, plastic and its toxins can then be transferred to humans through the ingestion of seafood. The Midway Islands in the Pacific Ocean are home to many different bird species including the world’s largest number of albatrosses. Plastic items and waste materials are washed onto shore and mistaken by the birds as food. A wildlife manager by the name of Matt Brown cut open a dead albatross and found the contents of its stomach to have a large amount of plastic items including a part of a toothbrush, a bottle cap, and pieces of an old fishing net. Brown agrees with most scientists that it is going to take effort from society as a whole to fix this issue.
Which means their obviously bad for the aquatic marine life environment & are cause many different forms of damage for them & us as one. On p.g. 23 of The New York Times upfront magazine “Birds,fish, sea turtles, & others are getting tangled in plastic bags or mistake them for food & choke”. Someone else might argue that they could the plastic bags in landfills instead of oceans. But that counter- argument is flawed because you’re just polluting by burning plastic which is bad on our part we’re not doing our part to support & taking care of the earth. Plastic in the ocean isn't just bad for plants & animals but for humans too because of the food chain some of us eat animals as a meat source such as aqua marine life like fish. If the fishermen catch fish that have been eating plastic then it's in our food supply if we eat that fish it's gonna be bad for us so many will end up getting sick from the plastic inside of the fish then what will we do our aqua marine food supply will go down the drain we couldn’t eat the fish since it's basically contaminated with plastic that we’re dumping there instead of trying to fix it & getting rid of plastic bags for good for the good of the earth. We’re causing damage towards the earth by dumping all that plastic into the ocean which damages our water supply it’ll poison us although we clean the water it depends on how big the plastic particles are, it’ll make us sick & sense it’s been lying in the oceans could bring in new pathogens &
Do you know that people are polluting oceans in so many ways, and what we are doing about it. First, my evidence shows that two billion people within thirty miles of the coast create 100 million metric tons of coastal plastic waste (Doc.1). In my own words, this evidence show that all this pollution is really harmful to ocean creatures and us. More evidence is that the North Pacific Gyre has collected lots of these pollutants, so it is nicknamed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (O.I.). This shows how we are polluting the oceans. My next evidence shows that a Beach Act was passed in 2000 saying the EPA or the Environmental Protection Agency will help states test and monitor coastal water pollution to protect swimmers (Doc.2). This evidence
According to a study conducted by the University of British Columbia, approximately “93 percent of beach fulmars (migratory seabirds related to the albatross) had bellies full of plastic, with one even having upwards of “454 pieces of plastic in its stomach” alone. (Source B) Similarly, in a 2011 International Coastal Clean-up, there were 964244 plastic bags found in the ocean, each having the potential to kill wildlife (Source C). A major reason as to why plastic bags are so hazardous to animal health is the fact that they have no biodegradable capabilities, meaning that instead breaking down into organic materials, plastic takes 500 to 1000 years to simply photodegrade, fragmenting into smaller pieces but not presenting any less danger (Source F). As these pieces become smaller, making it easier for any animal life, marine or not, to ingest it and suffocate as a result of the blockage. This is when the implementation of a tax on plastic bags could become extremely useful as a method of regulation and
For an Albatross bird living on Midway island, life is centered around breeding, eating, sleeping, pooping, and repeating. However, with increased levels of plastic accumulating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch near their island home, staying alive has become a more difficult task than nature intended. This is because parent Albatross often pick up plastic from the garbage patch and feed it to their young after mistaking it for food. Baby Albatross cannot pass plastic through their systems or regurgitate it, so after consuming too much, they often die either from starvation when their plastic filled stomachs mistakenly send signals to their brains communicating that they are full, or from internal injury due to the sharp edges of some pieces
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is sometimes referred to as the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch and the Pacific Trash Vortex is a floating patch of garbage that has collected in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, which is located in the middle of two high-pressure areas between Hawaii and California. The majority of the garbage, which is also called marine debris, in the patch is plastic, but items made from other materials such as glass and rubber are also present. Though the garbage patch is too large and goes too deep under the surface of the ocean for scientists to determine exactly how much garbage is in it, they have collected up to 750,000 bits of plastic one square kilometer (CITE). This sort of debris floating around in the ocean is dangerous for several reasons. One important reason is that marine animals mistake some of the garbage, especially plastics, for food (CITE). Another reason that the floating debris is so dangerous is because it can block sunlight from reaching deeper levels of the ocean, and thus, it removes the energy source for many autotrophs like alga...
Ocean Pollution is a serious issue in today's global politics. The delicate balance of Earth's ecosystem is put in jeopardy when the ocean is not clean. Problem evolving from ocean pollution directly harm marine life and indirectly affect human health and the Earth's many valuable resources. Ocean Pollution is a Broad term that encpompasses any and all foregin matter that directly or indirectly makes its way into the ocean. This includes everything from the extreme: oil spills, Toxic Waste dumping and industrial dumping-- to the small scael: human activities and basic carelessness. Because the oceans and all other water bodies are invariably, somehow connected, and because they account for 3/4 of the Earth's surface, they are an ideal method of transportation for pollution, allowing the rapid spread of seemingly far away toxins into a river near you! It is increasingly important that we educate ourselves as to what, exactly, ocean pollution is, so that we can identify the causes at their source and take action in small and large ways, and hopefully, prevent this terrible form of pollution from getting any worse than it is today.
Ocean pollution is an out of sight, out of mind kind of situation. Pollution enters the ocean through how humans dispose of waste, accidents and carelessness. Ocean pollution destroys everything and there are multiple types of ocean pollution. There’s thermal, oil, plastic, and chemical pollution. Over 80% of ocean pollution is from land based activates which are careless. Ocean pollution causes hundreds of deaths to ocean plants and animals because of human negligence to the ocean.
Recently, an uninhabited island in the South Pacific Ocean was found to be polluted with 38 million pieces of plastic that had been carried over by currents (Wang, “No one lives on this remote Pacific island”). The island, dubbed ‘trash island’, is home to diverse animal populations that have all been devastated by the pollution. On the beach, hundreds of birds were seen dead by reporters and scientists. When analyzed, the primary cause of death turned out to be consumption of plastic. When animals ingest plastic, it clogs their stomach and poisons their body with toxic chemicals. These toxic chemicals cause an array of issues, such as reproductive and endocrine problems. Eventually, this leads to death (Knoblauch, “The environmental toll of plastics”). But due to the nature of plastics, it can take hundreds or even thousands of years to completely degrade, meaning that as plastic pollution continues to build up, more places like ‘trash island’ will be discovered. According to conservation scientist Alex Bond, “…[The island] is just an indicator of what’s floating around out there” (Wang, “No one lives on this remote Pacific
“Plastic Pollution” Disney Oceans. NP Web. 18 April 2014. http://takepart.com/oceans/plastic-pollution. Roach, John “Source of Half Earth’s Oxygen Gets Little Credit” National Geographic.
"Oceans." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 8 May 2014.
The world population is living, working, and vacationing along the coasts. They are contributing to an unprecedented tide of plastic waste. Pollution is defined as the process that alters a substance or molecule on planet earth, the pollution is caused by the physical contact of an organic decaying particle with a clean particle in the same spot, at the time the two particles join together is when occurs pollution in which the environment is greatly altered. Too many, plastic is a modern day miracle, versatile, inexpensive and durable (Rochman 2014). To others, it is a scourge, a non-degradable pollutant that threatens to choke the global environment. Plastic pollution has led to the deaths of many animals, natural resources, and people (Rochman 2014). It is time to change America’s thinking and to learn from past mistakes.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a stretch of several thousand miles where plastic and other debris gather due to what is called the North P...
Plastic or paper, is a choice that people face when going to the grocery stores. Plastic bags are often the choice that is made. A controversial issue in the world today is the use of plastic bags. Plastic bags are used because of the convenience they give, by being able to carry several items at once. However, in the article, “Banning Bans, Not Bags”, Jennifer Schultz claims, “Plastic bags clog up local waterways, litter roadways, and get swallowed up by unsuspecting fish” (6). Plastic bags are used once, then are discarded or, littered all over the place. When they are littered all over they become problems for more than just humans. These plastic bags pose a big hazard for animals on land and in especially the ocean. Humans eat land and
Although plastic bags appear to be fragile and light, their negative environmental effect is devastating. Plastic bags may cause large amounts of pollution in every step of their limited life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials, production, transportation, and recycling or disposal. Plastic bags can be defined as the most damaging form of environmental pollution. They can have a damaging effect on marine animals and wildlife in addition to the aesthetic effects on beaches, parks, and trees. Plastic bags are potentially one of the main causes of death to marine animals (Harbor keepers,2008). Up to one hundred thousand marine animals or more die each year from eating plastic bags which are mistaken for food. This can result in blocking the animal’s intestines and possibly lead to the animal’s death. Another possible situation is that wildlife, such as birds, can get tangled in plastic bags causing choking and immobility, which may eventually lead to death. (Senior, 2008) and (Citizen Campaign, 2010). In other situations, after plastic bags photo degrade they remain toxic and could be eaten by fish, shellfish or any other marine life and survive this allows the toxins to enter our food chain through bioaccumulation (Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, 2011).
Research from the University of California San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography said that species in the ocean consume a projected 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic every year in the Pacific Ocean (Nall, 2014). Pollution of recyclable materials in the oceans is one of the leading causes of why some marine species are nearing extinction. Many authors of articles and books analyzing this topic tend to agree that pollution of our oceans is a problem. The future of this problem is where their ideas tend to differ. The following four literature reviews attempt to demonstrate and support my belief that pollution is getting worse in the ocean and more marine life ecosystems are being affected, but there are things that we as humans can do to change this. Imagine a world where we didn’t have to constantly worry about the vicious cycle of humans affecting animals and then animals in turn affecting us through consumption.