Plastic is the most Harmful for the Ocean

The ocean is essential for human life and is the lifeblood for earth. Three fourths of the plant is made up oceans. In addition, about seventy five percent of the oxygen is produced from our oceans. In many ways we use the ocean in day to day tasks. We use it drink water, we use it to breathe, we even use things that are made up of water, like for example pools, or even a water hose. Deep ocean waters are home to marine life and is home to one of the biggest creatures on the planet. The ocean provide jobs, entertainment, and most importantly the ocean provides food. That’s why ocean pollution is such a big problem.

We need the oceans to survive. Everything that drinks water could go extinct without the oceans. Since the ocean is so vast and big, people think they can dump whatever they want into the ocean with no effects,but there wrong. Ocean pollution has become a problem now. According Kimberly Amaral ”14 billion pounds of garbage was being dumped into the ocean every year. That's more than 1.5 million pounds per hour”. There are literally small island sized garbe clusters floating in our oceans.

Marine life is affected a lot by pollution in the oceans. According to the Marin Academy's Oceanography website, “there are over 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in each square mile of ocean off the Northeast coast of the United States, which contributes to the death of 100,000 marine mammals and two millions sea birds yearly”. In some areas marine life can’t reproduce because of the amount of pollution. If some marine life can't reproduce it could throw the food web unbalanced. Many fish survive from eating a certain fish and if they aren't reproducing then they could die off due to starvation.

Ocean pollution doesn't only affect marine life but also rain, that's right rain. Rain comes from the ocean, when the it heats up from the sun and evaporates into the clouds. It then rains on lands. We drink this rain since we can't drink ocean water do to it being too salty. Millions of pounds of trash is dissolved in the ocean. When we drink the rain that came from the dissolved water we could become sick from that. In addition we could have acid rain, which is rain that burns and eats away things. This is caused by extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. According to Ocean Portal Team, “When carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater, the water becomes more acidic and the ocean’s pH (a measure of how acidic or basic the ocean is) drops. Even though the ocean is immense, enough carbon dioxide can have a major impact. In the past 200 years alone, ocean water has become 30 percent more acidic—faster than any known change in ocean chemistry in the last 50 million years”.

Unlike most guagbe in the ocean plastic is probably the most harmful for the ocean.according to Brain Hutchinson, “ between 4 and 12 million metric tons of plastic enter the ocean each year—enough to cover every foot of coastline on the planet! And that amount is expected to more than double in the next 10 years. Let that sink in for a moment”. If we really want to help the oceans from pollution, we need to stop using so much plastic. Instead of opening and drink 3 waters, you could instead use one and then refill it. Recycling also helps as well.

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