How Stuff Works, MNN, and Discovery news agree, The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a large amount of garbage that has been thrown into the ocean or runoff debris from land. This collection of waste is made up of trash, toxic runoff, fishing gear, plastics and other pollutants. According to One Green Planet, the Garbage Patch is 2x the size of Texas and has 3 million tons of litter.
Most people believe it is trash visible with the naked eye, according to National Oceanic Service and Ocean Portal, (Figure 3: Casey Chan) however the majority consists of plastics. About 90% of plastic (according to National Geographic) does not breakdown but becomes micro-plastics – small particles the size of phytoplankton. Fish are consuming these plastics, …show more content…
The Starving Ocean explains how Phytoplankton is like a sponge removing carbon from our atmosphere. With the decrease of phytoplankton and increase in carbon, people’s health could be affected. Asthma, allergies and other breathing problems can occur.
Without phytoplankton, marine life that are important to keeping our oceans clean begin to leave or die off, further increasing toxins in the water. This would cause marine life to leave, creating a dead zone in that area. Already seen off the coast of Mexico, fish leave to find a more oxygen rich environment but the damage may already be done. (International Business time; Figure 4 dead zone scale Teach Ocean Science, NSF 2015) We must present clearly documented proof so people will have an urgency to make a change. This water needs to be consistently tested. Proving oxygen levels are decreasing, phytoplankton is being depleted by micro-plastics and nutrients being replaced with more toxic elements. We will do this by testing nutrient, chemical and oxygen levels in the Garbage Patch areas, as well as plankton and plastic
Most people believe it is trash visible with the naked eye, according to National Oceanic Service and Ocean Portal, (Figure 3: Casey Chan) however the majority consists of plastics. About 90% of plastic (according to National Geographic) does not breakdown but becomes micro-plastics – small particles the size of phytoplankton. Fish are consuming these plastics, …show more content…
The Starving Ocean explains how Phytoplankton is like a sponge removing carbon from our atmosphere. With the decrease of phytoplankton and increase in carbon, people’s health could be affected. Asthma, allergies and other breathing problems can occur.
Without phytoplankton, marine life that are important to keeping our oceans clean begin to leave or die off, further increasing toxins in the water. This would cause marine life to leave, creating a dead zone in that area. Already seen off the coast of Mexico, fish leave to find a more oxygen rich environment but the damage may already be done. (International Business time; Figure 4 dead zone scale Teach Ocean Science, NSF 2015) We must present clearly documented proof so people will have an urgency to make a change. This water needs to be consistently tested. Proving oxygen levels are decreasing, phytoplankton is being depleted by micro-plastics and nutrients being replaced with more toxic elements. We will do this by testing nutrient, chemical and oxygen levels in the Garbage Patch areas, as well as plankton and plastic