Plastic Debris Affecting Our Oceans

“...the volume of plastic debris going into the world’s oceans could more than double by 2025, assuming current trends in coastal development and plastic use.” (Tibbets, 1). Plastic pollution is an ongoing issue that has affected our oceans for a long time. We produce numerous amounts of plastics everyday in order to fulfill our consumer based society. Because of that, we are dealing with the results of our actions. The overproduction and wastefulness of plastic have caused our oceans to be polluted by plastic and the chemicals that come along with it, which in turn causes the marine life to die; because recycling is done improperly, researchers need to find ways to make plastic biodegradable or improve the recycling methods. (Semicolon) Plastic …show more content…
In 2010 there was thought to be roughly between 4.8-12.7 million metric tons of plastic byproduct in the ocean, which “...is the same as five five-gallon bags filled with mixed plastic on every foot of coastline around the world.” (Tibbetts, 2). But he is not necessarily trying to say that all of this plastic is on the coasts, or this would be getting much more attention. “Slightly more than half of all plastic is negatively buoyant, meaning that it will sink upon reaching the ocean, either into the near-shore sediment environment or to the ocean floor,” stated by Anna-Marie Cook (Seltenrich, 3). The plastic could possibly degrade at the ocean floor, but there is no way of cleaning it up. The plastic, which is almost invisible after it degrades, could be exposing harsh chemicals to the marine life (Relative pronoun). Even if it does degrade the chemicals in the plastic will contaminate the ocean. So why don’t we just recycle this …show more content…
But that doesn’t mean we cannot find a way to keep the plastic from going into the ocean or landfills. Considering plastic is killing marine life, which is a food source for us, we need to find a way to make this plastic safe for the environment when it is disposed. Or the better solution is to recycle the plastic in a more efficient way in order to get out what we started with. Plastic pollution is an issue that is the consequence for the overproduction of plastic. This has altered our oceans greatly and we need to stop the overproduction of plastic and end the waste issue. Plastic pollution causes several deaths of marine life, extensive amounts of damage to the ocean, and loss of a food source for people