Plastic consumptione each year: ''Plastic'' the wonder material that we use for everything. Our addiction to cheap, plastic products and packaging, and a comprehensive global failure to steward these materials properly. Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. A recent study revealed that 8 million tons of plastic waste flows into our oceans each year, enough to cover every foot of coastline in the world. Plastics and its Effects: All this plastic waste is toxic and may be affecting our food supply. One of the main toxins is dioxin, an endocrine disruptor, or so-called gender-bender pollutant. Sea Bass and other fish with intersex characteristics have been found in the Potomac River and other areas. Increased levels of man-made pollutants are showing up in remote areas like the arctic, affecting polar bears and other arctic mammals and further adding to the stress of adapting to new climate realities and habitat changes. We really should wonder how these pollutants are affecting us! What goes in the sea goes into you: As far as plastic entering the ocean, about 20% of the trash comes from ships and platforms that are offshore. The rest sources from litter being blown into the sea, picked up by tides on the beach, or intentional garbage dumping. The worse part is, these plastics don't biodegrade, so they brake up into tiny pieces that are consumed by fish and sea mammals. Plastic is killing more than 100,000 sea turtles and birds a year from ingestion and entanglement.Chemicals in plastics are released into the water as well as the atmosphere. Fish easily become contaminated from the chemicals in the water. This is a direct link of how plastic chemicals enter the food chain. The great pacific patch:
Water, water, everywhere—and most of it is filled with plastic. A new discovery of a massive amount of plastic floating in the South Pacific is yet another piece of bad news in the fight against ocean plastic pollution. This patch was recently discovered by Captain Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Research Foundation, a non-profit group dedicated to solving the issue of marine plastic pollution.The term “patch” referring to the plastic pollution in oceanic gyres can be misleading. The pieces of plastic are not necessarily floating bottles, bags, and buoys, but teeny-tiny pieces of plastic resembling confetti, making them almost impossible to clean up.These micro plastic particles may not be visible floating on the surface, but in this case, they were detected after collecting water samples on Moore’s recent six-month expedition to the remote area that had only been explored for plastic once before.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
JOIN THE CONVERSATIONWe believe in collaborative development. Two heads are better than one. Even better is a community progressing towards common goal. Comment, share, contact us via mail and social media.
Categories
All
Archives |