Plastic is an integral part of the world. There is plastic everywhere. Plastic cups, plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic containers, etc. Everybody uses plastic, but nobody thinks twice about what happens after plastic is disposed. Even though plastic can be very useful, it’s not that useful when it’s dumped in the oceans. About 8 million tons of plastic are dumped each year, and this can be harmful to marine life, and the rest of the world. Trash, mainly plastic, is dumped in areas that used to be pristine, such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Tuvalu, and the shores of Bermuda.
Located in the North Pacific Ocean (within the North Pacific Gyre), the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a large patch of garbage about the size of Russia. It is described as a floating island of trash, and there is a documentary about it called “A Plastic Ocean.” The situation is far worse than it sounds. When filmmaker Jo Ruxton visited the Garbage Patch, she found a serious issue. The water was very clear, but the nets were bringing up tiny plastic pieces. The pieces were small enough to be a threat towards plankton, which is food to many whales and fishes. Researchers estimate that there are about 750,000 microplastic pieces per square kilometer in the Garbage Patch. This is bad for the marine life, and unlike the piles of trash floating on the surface, the tiny pieces of plastic are too small to be removed. To make matters worse, the amount of plastic will only grow. Close to eight million tons of plastic are dumped each year, and the Ellen Macarthur Foundation estimates that there will be more plastic than fish by 2050.
Ruxton and her team visited several other locations, and they found more plastic. Places all over the world such as the Mediterranean Sea bed, the shores of Bermuda, and an island in the Tasman Sea had high levels of plastic. The worst find, however, was Tuvalu, an island in the South Pacific. People were just dumping plastic everywhere, and were burning it, sending toxic fumes everywhere. To test the health impacts this has on people, Ruxton found out what had happened to a group of 30 islanders in her film, shot about 18 months ago. Five had cancer, and two were dead. Along with plastic fumes, plastic ingestion can also be a big problem. About a quarter of the fish people eat in Indonesia contains bits of plastic. Tests on lab animals show that ingestion can cause tumors. Oceanographer Captain Charles J. Moore, who discovered the Great Garbage Patch, believes that the world’s exposure to plastic is increasing. If nothing is done to stop this, some species may disappear.
Even with all these problems, there still is hope for the oceans. Many organizations have formed because of this situation, such as The Global Partnership On Marine Litter, which brings businesses and conservationists together to find solutions, and the U.N’s Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Protection (GESAMP). Peter Kershaw, chairman at GESAMP believes that a good solution is to end the idea of disposable plastic, and even if that doesn’t happen, plastic needs to be disposed of properly, reused, or recycled. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), around 9% of the plastic that can be recycled is actually recycled in the U.S. The rest is thrown away. Additionally, there are many situations where other materials can be used in place of plastic. For example, plastic bags can be replaced with paper bags, or reusable cloth bags. People have even invented edible spoons to replace plastic spoons. Developing new technology to recycle and dispose of plastic can be a big help as well. To achieve these solutions, people first need to be educated on the impact of plastic on the world.
Plastic can be very harmful if it is not disposed properly. It can harm, or even kill marine life, and it can ruin the oceans. People are very careless when disposing plastic, and this carelessness can harm the Earth. Some places like Tuvalu, which was once a pristine place, are now full of toxic fumes, and trash covers the ground. A lot of it can be cleaned up, but if nothing is done and humans continue to waste plastic, then entire species can disappear, and more places will begin to be like Tuvalu.
Works Cited:
Monks, Kieron. “The Plastic Plague Washing up on Our Shores.” CNN. Cable News Network, 2
Sept. 2016. Web. 27 Sept. 2016. <http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/30/world/plastic-plague-o ceans/index.html>.