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Essay about the pacific garbage patch
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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Today, scientists believe the world's largest garbage dump isn't on land but it is in the
Pacific Ocean. It is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, stretching 10 million miles from
the coast of California to China floating on either side of Hawaii and swirling beneath the
surface. It's estimated to be twice the size of the state of Texas. It consists of 100 million tons
of discarded plastic such as water bottles, bags, DVD cases, toothbrushes, toys, shampoo bottles,
plastic wrap, Tupperware, credit cards, plastic plates and cups eyeglasses just to name a few
items.
Over the next decade, it is predicted that its size will double. Right now it is
approximately 30 meters deep and every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating
plastic. According to Fabien Cousteau, grandson to the undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau, this
enormous garbage swirl also affects sea birds, turtles and beluga whales—can't speak for
themselves. "They get caught in these nets, or they swallow some of these bottle caps," Fabien
says. "Killer whales, which are kind of our mirror, our canary in the coal mine, so to speak, are
ingesting all sorts of things that are affecting their health." People have no idea that plastic bags
are creating such a huge environmental hazard by ending up in the ocean. Materials made of
wood, minerals, plants, rock, clay, silk and glass eventually will crumble obediently into the soil.
Plastic is not biodegradable, it just breaks into smaller pieces, like microscopic pellets
of plastic in the billions and into the oceans where they soak up toxins and are absorbed by sea
jellies. The food chain does its thing, to fish to our plates, and w...
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...red Hawaiian monk seal, marine debris, and El Niño. Marine Mammal Science 23(2):468-473.
Kubota, M. 1994. A mechanism for the accumulation of floating marine debris north of Hawaii. Journal of Physical Oceanography 24:1059–1064.
Morishige, C., M. Donohue, E. Flint, C. Swenson, and C. Woolaway. 2007. Factors affecting marine debris deposition at French Frigate Shoals, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, 1990-2002. Marine Pollution Bulletin 54: 1162-1169.
Pichel, W., J. Churnside, T. Veenstra, D. Foley, K. Friedman, R. Brainard, J. Nicoll, Q. Zheng, and P. Clemente-Colon. 2007. Marine debris collects within the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone. Marine Pollution Bulletin 54: 1207-1211.
http://algalita.org/
http://www.fabiencousteau.org/
http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=home
http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/
coast (as shown in pictures 1 & 2). The area of sea is subject to the
of tides. High - water heights vary from 22 to 28 feet and low - water heights
The North Pacific Gyre, home to the north pacific Garbage Patch, occupies the zone of the subtropical High between Haeaii and California. It is the largest and best studied of the gyress, though still fraught with unknowns. It is thought to be the trashiest, though this question is still being studied. Covering more than 20 million square miles, it is the largest on earth and therefor the planet’s largest garbage dumps. (Humes, 2012, p.
Pacific Coast Of Hokkaido." Coastal Engineering Journal 54.1 (2012): 1250002-1-1250002-17. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.
"The Long Island Sound is a national treasure, to be prized for its beauty, abundant and diverse resources, and recreational and commercial opportunities" (Long Island Sound Study). It is true that for many of the residents of the area the Long Island Sound is a source of inspiration and renewal. The Sound is widely believed to be the most substantial natural component adding to the beauty of the entire island. The Long Island Sound provides more then just beautiful scenery, but crucial natural elements that aide both human and animal residents. Despite all that the sound provides, it suffers many of the same problems as most natural features, pollution. The sound is a crucial part in maintaining the quality of life on Long Island, so its protection, preservation, and restoration are imperative.
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 &
There is also debate on how much better biodegradable plastics are in the first place. This is because as biodegradable plastics break down, they break up into smaller and smaller pieces, but never quite disappear. This leaves the potential that the plastic would continue entering the food chain. But although biodegradable plastics aren’t perfect, they are still much safer than standard plastic and present a much lower risk. In addition, by making the shift to ban single use plastics, research towards better plastic alternatives will speed up and better solutions will become available. Over time, these new alternatives to plastics may spread to other items that aren’t single use, making an even greater impact on the health of humans and the
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...
The ocean is an abundant source of life. It is home to thousand of different creatures, provides a great source of food, and provides the earth with about one half of the oxygen needed to sustain life. (National Geographic) Pollution especially plastic, is a catastrophic problem. Ironically plastic, which is a material designed to last forever is generally used for things we tend to throw away. Every year about one hundred to two hundred billion pounds of plastic are manufactured. Only 31% of that plastic is actually recycled. Biomass packaging estimates 10% of that plastic ends up in the ocean annually. About 20% of it coming from ships and other platforms, and the other 80% coming from land derived sources, such as international garbage dumping, winds or tides either way it finds its way to the ocean.(Biomass Packaging Co., et al)
In Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, Elizabeth Royte describes the fate of all the garbage thrown out by people (Royte, 2005). It is a fascinating trail, as she shows a territorial, economic, and ecological perspective of the garbage disposal system. She had visited the Gowanus Canal, a filthy place near her home in Brooklyn when she started questioning herself about garbage.
... converting plastic waste into useful products are being affected by pollution; this contamination is found within containers where plastics are collected. But the same risk of pollution carries downside consequences in which workers and people responsible for cleaning and disinfecting the plastic materials are not doing the best to eliminate plastic waste, and to disinfect the infected bacteria and microorganisms from the atmosphere and environment. Organizations from China and India are the largest in the world, they collect and purchase used plastic from United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America (Minguez 2013). These companies do not bother to sanitize the products before the recycling process; for this reason the planet earth is getting a worse environmental condition, and it is destroying lives of living beings, and natural resources as well (Uddin 2014).
Using plastic bags are second nature to people in this day and age. Warner acknowledges, “Much to the dismay of the environmentally conscious citizens worldwide, the ubiquity of the free plastic carryout bag has bred nonchalant consumers who take this modern convenience for granted” (646). Although some people are conscious about the environment, people strive more for convenience and do not think about the impacts using bags have not only on the environment, but on themselves as well. If something is bad for the environment, it will alternatively be bad for humans as well. When plastic bags are exposed to the sun from being littered all around, the ultraviolet rays cause the substances of plastic bags to weaken. After the substances weaken, the substances become invisible to the naked eye. The substances that are no longer able to be seen are toxic to humans (Warner 649). As a result of plastic bags being littered around, animals consume plastic bags. This is negatively affects humans because animals are often consumed. When humans consume animals like, fish, there can be plastic in the fish’s belly, which then transfers to the humans and this poses a concern for human’s health. Humans are negatively affected by plastic bags because of the toxic chemicals in plastic bags, as well as, consuming animals with plastic in their
Renee Cho, a journalist for the State if the Planet, studied what occurs to all the plastic after consumers throw their plastic products out, "It's estimated that there are also hundreds of millions of plastic debris floating around in the oceans threatening the health and safety of marine life." Landfills are increasingly gaining size because of the amount of plastic we use to create out products as it is not biodegradable. Plastic can take more than one thousand years to degrade and can only be recycled through a lengthy expensive process. There also are large islands of plastic waste currently in our oceans, collected together by ocean gyres. Marine wildlife mistake these plastic products as food and ingest them, either killing or injuring themselves. The plastic pollution causes harm and endangers our
Sul, Juliana A. Ivar Do, and Monica F. Costa. "The Present and Future of Microplastic Pollution in the Marine Environment." Environmental Pollution (2013): n. pag. Print.
The ocean can serve man purposes things for many different people; as a school, a home, a park...