Plastic Is Killing Our Oceans

Plastic Is Killing Our Oceans

D. S. Mitchell

Plastic is one of the most common materials in our daily lives. We eat and drink from it. Stuff is packaged in it, stuff is shipped in it. If current practices continue plastic dumping into the ocean is expected to double by 2025. That’s only seven years from now!

Ninety seven per cent of the Earth’s livable habitat is found in our oceans.  The oceans of the world are home to more than 700,000 known species and they generate more than half of the oxygen that we as living organisms breath.  Something must be done soon. We are standing by, seemingly paralyzed, as our oceans are becoming the biggest waste dump in the world. Our oceans are choking on plastic. We dump the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic into the ocean every minute of every day, non-stop.

We produce more and more throwaway plastic garbage, much of which we don’t really need. Recycling projects are failing to keep up with the threat. Plastic pollution is quickly transforming our seas into the biggest waste dump on the planet.

Plastic does not break down naturally. Things that had a useful life of just a few minutes or hours remains in the environment for 100’s of years.  These plastics kill ocean wildlife and enter the food chain, as plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. Plastic bags, cosmetic micro-beads and other types of plastic trash have spread throughout the ocean, from the surface to the deepest ocean canyons. Plastic debris washes back on to our beaches creating an ugly reminder of this ongoing environmental disaster.

Plastic pollution includes such items as disposable lighters, cigar tips, fishing lures, bottle caps, six-pack rings, abandoned fishing nets.  These items entangle and poison sea life. Turtles, sharks and sea lions become entangled in plastic nets or plastic bags, crippling them and leaving them vulnerable to attack. Other ocean life–including zooplankton, oysters, whales and seabirds–are ingesting plastic waste mistakenly filling their stomachs with plastic instead of food, and as a result, are suffering slow painful deaths.

Plastic is made with toxic chemicals, bisphenol-A, styrene and phthalates. Plastic in the ocean behaves like a sponge soaking up pollutants and pesticides from the surrounding ocean water. When marine animals eat plastic they are also ingesting a poisonous buffet. Toxins can concentrate up the food chain, and can even end up on your dinner plate. A disgusting thought, and a dangerous predictor of our future.

In the Mediterranean Sea, debris has been found inside fish, birds, turtles, and sperm whales stomachs. The current aim of environmentalists is to shift mindsets to make single-use plastics unacceptable, and eventually end their use. The future of our oceans and its marine life depends on such energetic actions.

Are you feeling overwhelmed and not sure you can take on another battle? We can each act in a small way. A little effort by a large number of people can have dramatic results. We must change our policies, and our own habits. I’m an old lady, I remember as a kid plastic containers were almost nonexistent. We lived without plastic for millions of years, and over the last fifty years plastic has taken over everything in our lives.

Things you can do today:
1). Write, tweet, fax, email your lawmakers. Let them know your concerns, and demand laws that will reduce sources of plastic pollution, and place bans on single use plastics.
2). Buy products with non-plastic packaging. Support restaurants that offer biodegradable “take out” containers and utensils. Decline plastic straws.
3). Bring your own to-go containers, coffee cups, re-usable straws. Never go shopping without your own shopping bags.
4). Start a program at work to reduce single use plastic. Organize a beach clean up. Make recycling and reduction of plastic in our society a center of discussion.

According to John Hocevar, a Greenpeace spokesman says his organization “is engaging two million people over the course of three years to shift the behavior or corporations driving the serious environmental hazard created by throwaway plastic packaging, leading to new solutions that will pave the way to a plastic free society and end the flow of plastic waste into the ocean.”

Greenpeace and many other environmental organizations are  calling on global corporations to phase out single-use plastic and engaging retailers, particularly supermarkets and convenience stores, to persuade them to do more comprehensive assessments of their role in plastic pollution, and commit to reduce their plastic footprints.

We can do this, and make no mistake this is an all hands on deck emergency. Please do your part. We still have a chance to save our oceans, and ourselves.

Calamity Politics is a progressive on-line news magazine focusing on the issues of the day with a clearly stated forward thinking agenda. Join the Resistance.

Dar

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