Britt Sturgis
Once when I was paddling out to go surf, I saw a beer can just floating in the
water, I picked it out of the water and caught a wave in to put it in the trash.
Growing up on the beach I have witnessed the act of marine pollution first hand,
seeing the trash build up on the beach is very sad sight. A large group of beach
goers do not even realize that leaving your trash on the beach has extremely
harmful effects on the ecosystem as a whole. My message is to any one who enjoys
the water as much as I do, we need to clean up after our selves. If we really want to
make an impact we will make a movement to clean up after our neighbors as well by
supporting the surf rider foundation. To help fix the problem of marine pollution
and to help the world as a whole we should work to help support organizations such
as the Surfrider foundation in cleaning up the world’s beaches and educating beach
goers on better preserving our worlds oceans.
Who is the Surfrider foundation? This organization was founded by a group
of surfers from Malibu, California. The main concern of the people who started the
Surfrider foundation was protecting their favorite surf spot from development as
well as keeping the beach clean. This organization really speaks to me because I am
a surfer myself and have witnessed first hand pollution at the surf spots at my home
in Virginia Beach. This organization has 292 coastal victories since 2006 and
continues to protect the beach to this very day. (Surfrider 2015)
In the early 90’s surf rider worked hard to helped push new environmental
laws, such as the reauthorization of the clean water act. This shows me that this
organization shares the same passion as I do to keep the ocean clean. In 1997 the
Surfrider foundation stopped a petroleum test burn involving 2,500 gallons of crude
oil. This burn would have hurt 10 miles of Washington’s coastline This foundation
stopped a major hotel development in Rincon Puerto Rico in 2002 Saving any
coastline is a victory.
There are ways to reduce pollutions such as creating government policies
banning drilling. Our government has already created things such as the clean
water act, but their needs to be some other sort of policy. Increasing fines for
littering and creating restrictions on manufacturing products with micro plastics
could have a huge impact on the ecosystem as a whole. But still there will be plastics
in the ocean because damage has already been done we cannot take back the years
of destruction. We do have the ability to make an impact by stopping pollution but
that is easier said than done. More research needs to be done on this topic to find
out all of the best solutions is too this problem. The only way to do your part to end
pollution is cleaning up your waste one step at a time.
When I am in Virginia Beach I like to go watch the sunrise on the beach.
When walking on the beach you see pollution such as cigarette butts, caps, plastic
bottles, plastic bags, food wrappers, plastic utensils, glass bottles, straws, soda cans,
paper bags, and much more. Cigarette butts can last any where from 1.5 to 10 years,
disposable diapers and plastic bottles last 450 years, and what I find the most scary
is the amount of time it takes a glass bottle to decompose is undetermined.
(Dosomething.org 2015.) Most public beaches have an area designated to dispose of
trash, and some people leave their trash on the sand. This pollution is not just
limited to the ocean, people also leave trash at lakes, 40% of lakes in the United
States are too polluted for swimming, aquatic life, and fishing. (11 Facts About
Pollution 2015)
This pollution actually can take the lives of animals in the ocean such as the
bottlenose dolphin, seagulls, red drum, and many other organisms that call the
water there home. Bottle nose dolphins also can get there snouts stuck in six pack
holders causing them to not open their nose restricting them from eating. Sea turtles
hunt for jellyfish, many sea turtles mistake plastic bags to be jellyfish. Plastic
material, especially plastic bags has been found blocking the stomachs and
breathing passages of many marine animals, such as seals, puffins, turtles, dolphins
and whales. (Marine debris 2014)
It is very common for marine animals to mistake plastics for food; the
problem is the digestive system of most marine animals cannot digest plastics. Our
waste is having an impact on the population of a certain species perhaps even
causing an extinction of a certain type of species. There is a spot in the middle of the
Atlantic called the Great Atlantic Garbage Patch, this area spans from Virginia to
Cuba. This soup contains 26 million plastic particles per square kilometer.
(Goldstein 2015) This plastic waste is having tremendous effects around the world,
71% of the Earths surface is covered in water and all of the five oceans are being
harmed by this plastic pollution. Support of organizations such as the Surfrider
foundation
Oil companies are also a contributing factor too the decline in health of areas
in the ocean, for example the Gulf of Mexico’s environment has taken a toll due to
the BP oil spill back in 2010. Many animals did not survive due to the unhealthy
environment brought to there home by the one mistake a corporation has made.
Over 200 million gallons of crude oil was forced into the Gulf of Mexico for a total of
87 days, 16,000 miles of coastline was affected from Texas to Florida. Just six
months after the spill over 8,000 animals were reported dead, including some
endangered species. Animals were not the only things affected, when the oilrig first
exploded killed 11 people that were just doing their job, also injuring 17 other
employees. Even after the pipe was capped in July of 2010 oil is still washing up on
the shore to this day. (11 Facts about the BP oil spill 2014) This spill will affect the
lives of animals for years to come; the event will have long term affects on the ocean
as a whole.
Plastic pollution has been shown to one of the more common types of marine
pollution, where does this pollution come from? This year research done by the
Ocean Conservancy and McKinsey Center for Business and Environment, has found
that China (1,367,485,388), Indonesia (255,993,674), Philippines (100,998,376),
Vietnam (94,348,835), and Thailand (67,976,405) are responsibly for 60% of the
plastic waste in the Ocean. (Schiller. 2015) Together these countries have a
population of 1,886,802,678, the last census shows the total world population is
around 7,000,000,000. (Central intelligence agency 2015.) That is approximately
27% of the entire worlds population.
Just five countries responsible for more than half of the plastic pollution in
the ocean is that is a huge percentage of the entire worlds plastic pollution. To be
exact reducing the five countries plastic waste by 65% could reduce the global
percentage of plastic waste by 45%. The way to go about reducing our waste is
expanding public garbage collection, closing leakage points in collection facilities,
and generating energy from garbage. (Schiller. 2015) The Surfrider foundation
works to help reduce plastic pollution to the best of their abilities, the more people
who support and fund this organization the better chance we have at bettering
marine pollution and all of the detrimental side effects that go along with this
destruction of a habitat.
Plastic pollution stays in the water for a very long time. Plastics do not fully
decompose the Marine Conservancy has published an estimation of the
decomposition rates of plastics. This Research has shown that the estimated time
for a plastic foam cup to decompose is 50 years. A plastic beverage holder takes
roughly 400 years to decompose. (Ltyle. 2014) Animals such as dolphins and
seagulls can get their mouths tied up in these plastic beverage holders, making it
hard for them to eat causing problems in eating habits. If these animals can not eat
then they will end up dying from hunger if no one helps them get untangled from
the plastic beverage holder.
What are some problems that affect us as humans from marine pollution?
Scientist have been have found out that marine species are unable to distinguish
between food and microplastics, thus feeding on the plastics (Leslie 2014) These
animals have problems “The fish was suffering from three abnormalities, all
associated with polluted habitats: the eroded fins and the skin ulcers were obvious,
but additionally, microscopic examination of the liver disclosed numerous tumors.”
(Snidermann 2005 p256) Humans consume these fish containing these dangerous
plastics, potentially causing problems with human health. Some people believe that
consuming plastic has a direct correlation with things that can be detrimental to
human health.
One of my solutions is to fund education; in my research I have found that
proper education, fosters understanding about one’s society and its problems, can
contribute towards a balanced and healthy social structure. (Roy et al. 2015 p. 71)
Organizations put out a lot of information on the web about how we can better our
pollution footprint. I have found that almost all pollutions make it into the
waterways. So if we realize a healthy social structure directly relates to the
education of society, we can try and fight this problem of marine pollution with the
knowledge.
Micro plastics from common house hold items such as soaps and toothpastes
are making there way into the waterways. Micro plastics are microscopic plastic
beads that do not decompose in water; these plastics seriously are affecting the
quality of the water. The more micro plastics in the water the less oxygen in the
water the fish and algae are basically suffocating due to the oxygen levels. If we try
to remove these plastics from the ocean we are also removing some of the ocean
with it as well. Every 2 pounds of plastic bits we remove from the water we take out
1.6 pounds of sea life, this sea life consists of baby fish and zooplankton. (Goldstein
2015) There are a lot of problems in measuring the plastics that are found in the
ocean because all plastic is different and the ocean is such a big thing to measure so
being completely accurate would be extremely hard. One thing is for sure micro
plastics in the ocean are a real thing and can be very harmful to the ecosystem.
Who are the people who create plastic pollution on a microscopic level? I
have found in my own research that my friends and I use shampoos and toothpastes
that they contain microplastics. Some examples of these every day house hold items
are Aveeno Active Naturals Positively Radiant Skin Brightening Daily Scrub, Aveeno
Active Naturals Positively Ageless Resurfacing Scrub with Vitamin C, and Chrest 3D
Whitening Toothpaste. They are ways to avoid products containing polyethylene
microbeads; we can start by checking the ingredients labels for polyethylene.
Tying back to my point about proper education helping us better the problem
of marine pollution, more specifically polyethylene micro-pollution, an app has been
produced that allows the every day smart phone user to scan their own cosmetic
products label to find out whether or not their common house hold products contain
micro plastics.(2014 Hamilton). By supporting organization like the surf rider
foundation as well any other organization that fight to keep our beaches clean we
can work towards educating people on how cleaning up the oceans will improve our
human health and help strengthen the economy of the fishing industry.
Plastic comes from crude oil or natural gas, 1 ton of recycled plastic saves
16.3 barrels of oil. (Brennan. 2009) Recycling plastics can help more than just the
problem of marine pollution it also helps conserve the use of crude oil. A common
way of producing plastic is by a process of radical polymerization; this uses a fair
amount of energy. (Brennan. 2009) By saving this energy we can also help the
environment.