Every year, around 100 million sea animals die from sea pollution. This is a terribly upsetting thing to hear, isn’t it? As humans, we need to put more care into this earth and start helping these sea animals. 

What is sea pollution and how is it harmful?

The ocean is being flooded with 2 types of pollution. Chemical and plastic. Chemical contamination is a danger to not only sea animal’s health, but also human health. Chemical pollution is dangerous to aquatic life because some metals and solvents can be poisonous to the animals. It can slow their development, and even lead to death. For humans, “contaminated water can harbor bacteria, which lead to diarrhea, cholera, typhoid, hepatitis A, and polio.” (Smith 6).  According to the United Nations, around 297,000 children in third world countries die each year from consuming contaminated water.

Plastic pollution is also extremely harmful to sea life. However, it is not as harmful to humans. Aquatic life will often confuse plastic bags, caps, and little things like that as food. For instance, turtles confuse plastic bags with jellyfish then end up eating the plastic bags. This can cause them to choke. Some fish eat the plastic, but not enough to kill them. Then when they get caught and people eat those fish, people eat the plastic which can be extremely harmful to the human body. This is why we need to clean up the ocean. 

What will happen if we don’t clean the oceans?

Now that it is agreed that we need to remove chemicals and plastic from the ocean, many wonder what’s going to happen if we don’t make a change. Kati Sakurra says “By 2024, marine life will be under severe threat from plastic pollution, which is set to triple by then, thus reaching an approximate amount of 15 trillion pieces of plastic.” This will lead to nearly zero seafood for us to eat. When we do eat seafood, the fish will be filled with micro plastics that will end up in our bodies which would be extremely bad.It looks like we only have 2 more years until things start really going downhill, so changes must be made.  

Here are some local and global solutions! 

UNESCO says that “over 80 percent of ocean pollution comes from the land.” This means it starts with us.  Here at the International School of Beijing, we have sets of rubbish bins around the school, one for paper, one for plastic, and one for cans. This helps to keep things separated. “Each year, close to 20 billion plastic bottles are tossed in the trash.” – Engler. People tend to buy plastic water bottles and even if they get thrown in the bin, they can still end up in the ocean. 20 billion is a lot of plastic bottles. This shows that one should invest in a reusable water bottle instead of bringing a different plastic bottle to school everyday.

There is a search engine called oceanhero, and all the revenue from ads and the sites you click on go directly to clean up crews that help clean up trash from the ocean. Another thing is, people with periods can also use reusable menstrual products, like diva cups instead of tampons and pads. This would help because tampons and pads are wrapped in plastic, and cotton takes a while to decompose.

A lot of damage has already been done, but scientists believe that if we don’t start reducing the amount of waste that’s put in the ocean and preserving our ocean not only fish but all life forms will suffer the consequences.  This is why we need to make a change starting today.

citations

National Geographic. www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/marine-pollution/..

NRDC. www.nrdc.org/stories/10-ways-reduce-plastic-pollution.

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