Water pollution

Do you know how many pieces of plastic are in the ocean? Ocean

pollution is a topic most people don't really talk about, even

though it is a big problem that urgently needs addressing. Now, If

you are asking: why should I help if It doesn't even affect me?

Then here is why you are wrong.

First: we are the problem, not anyone else, so we are the ones that

need to clean up this mess. Second: it is directly affecting you

because we depend on the resources being polluted. Third: It harms

the environment with large impact on a great number of animal

and plant species, regardless if they live in the ocean or on dry

land

First: We are the causation.

The plastic pollution going to the oceans does not come from

someone else: it comes from each one of us. There are just too

many products made of plastic and just too many people

consuming them. It gets worse: the plastic packages are getting

smaller and, because of that, there are more of them and, on the

other hand, Earth’s population is going up.

We consume a lot of plastic in our everyday life. Today almost

every product we buy is packaged in plastic: from the cereal bag

we eat in the morning to the plastic box of the toys we buy. Things

are getting worse, because the packages are getting smaller. This

means that a product that used to consume only one package, now

comes into many smaller packages. A good example is the

capsules of express coffee. In the past people bought coffee in

large bags, now they buy them in tiny espresso capsules.

The problem gets more complicated If you think about it: billions of

people, from all over the world, are littering the streets, seashores

and lots of different places. Every day, more people consume mode

plastic packages. The quantity of rubbish is unbelievably huge,

and growing. The problem is that someone must take care of this in

the right way. If not, they will go to the sewers, then to the rivers

and finally will reach the oceans, where they cause a lot of harm to

many, many animals and plants. We must do better. That leads to

the next reason.

Second:It is affecting you

The sad part is that pollution of the place we live in does not affect

only the animals. The resources we need, like water and air, come

from the environment. If we pollute the environment, we are

making the water and the air dirtier and harder to get.

A portion of the plastic trash that reaches our rivers is actually

taken care of, but not in a good way. They burn it, making it release

toxic gasses into our atmosphere. These toxic gases causes a large

number of diseases such as asthma, emphysema, heart disease

and climate change. Many people, especially children, suffer from

these diseases nowadays.

The portion of the plastic that is not burned reaches and remains

on water - oceans, lakes and rivers - for a long time. Eventually,

they become tiny pieces of plastic. These small pieces are called

microplastics and have been detected in water around the world,

including our streams, rivers, lakes and oceans. In these

waterways, the microplastics end up in the water we drink and in

the fish we eat. Contaminated water can have harbor bacteria and

it can cause diarrhea and other diseases. By the UN sustainability

goals around 297,000 kids under five years old die from the

diseases that water pollution causes in our body and health

Third: It harms the environment

This is the main reason why you should help. Pollution affects

thousands of species in all of the places it occurs. It is bad for land

animals, river animals, fish, plants, and birds in the ocean.

As an example of an ocean full of trash is the great pacific garbage

patch, it is a place in the pacific ocean where a lot of trash is

concentrated. It has about 1.8 trillion individual pieces of trash. The

amount is unbelievable and needs to change. The Ocean Cleanup is

a company trying to solve this problem. They put so much work in

and only were able to clean a small part of the garbage patch.

Ocean or aquatic waste collected by ocean currents eventually

created the Great Pacific garbage patch. In the horse latitudes, it

occupies a relatively big area of the North Pacific Ocean, bounded

by the North Pacific Gyre. The gyre's rotational pattern attracts

pollution from all over the North Pacific, including tidal waters off

the coasts of North America and Japan. As a result,

One of the most serious risks to the oceans now is plastic waste.
But, actually, how much do we know about it? The Ocean Cleanup
recently released the most advanced report on the Great Pacific
Garbage Patch, the world's largest concentration region of ocean
plastic, as part of its effort to solve the crisis. Since the 1970s,
scientists have been exploring this region primarily by dragging a
small sampling net through the ocean. Researchers with the Ocean
Cleanup concluded that this approach was only accurate for small
debris and that it covered too small a region to accurately quantify
larger debris.

Many people are already helping but the problem still exists and is
very big. Fish can't even live there anymore, because of how much
trash it has. The pacific garbage patch has many “trash islands”
that look like this:

It is enormous and needs urgent cleaning.

Sources

PARKER, Laura. Ocean Trash: 5.25 Trillion Pieces and Counting, but

Big Questions Remain: The numbers add up to trouble for the

oceans, wildlife, and us, but scientists are struggling to

understand how.. National Geographic. Available on:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/150109-oceans

-plastic-sea-trash-science-marine-debris. Access in: 14 may. 2021.

DENCHAK , Melissa . Water Pollution: Everything You Need to Know:

Our rivers, reservoirs, lakes, and seas are drowning in chemicals,

waste, plastic, and other pollutants. Here’s why―and what you

can do to help.. NRDC.Available on:

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/water-pollution-everything-you-need-

know. Access in: 14 may. 2021.

Wikipedia. Great Pacific garbage patch: For other marine debris

gyres in the world's oceans, see Garbage patch..

Wikipedia.Available on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch. Access

in: 14 may. 2021.