Plastic Pollution
One million sea birds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed annually from plastic in our oceans.
Over the last ten years we have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century.
Tiny plastic beads used in hundreds of toiletries like facial scrubs and toothpastes have even been found in our Great Lakes—the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world!
According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, plastic debris kills an estimated 100,000 marine mammals annually, as well as millions of birds and fishes.
The marine life, Their homes, how it effects humans.
Annually approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. More than one million bags are used every minute.
44 percent of all seabird species, 22 percent of cetaceans, all sea turtle species and a growing list of fish species have been documented with plastic in or around their bodies.
When Humans eat fish, there may be little particles of plastic in them. So therefore over time if we continue to eat fish, squid, sharks, it could get us very sick. We could get closer to getting Cancer, births problems, the flu and more. Plastic also has a lot of bad chemicals in them as well.
Plastic has a lot of chemicals and some diseases, but some plastic in the oceans are destroying the marine life homes like coral reefs. Some plastic is cutting the coral and sea plants.
Only 3% of the plastic bags we use are recycled.
It takes 500 - 1,00 years for plastic to degrade.
Some Sea life thinks that plastic is their food. Like whales and turtles, some think that a plastic bag in the ocean is a jellyfish when it's archery plastic.
Things that we can do to help: Use reusable bags. Recycle plastic (Milk bottles, yogurt containers...), glass ( (Only for parents) beer and wine bottles.), cardboard.
Plastic bags remain toxic even after it breaks down. It doesn’t biodegrade, it photo-degrades. It means that after it degrades, it breaks down into smaller and smaller toxic bits of itself – and bleeds and contaminates the environment.
In a more direct route, boaters may dump their trash right into the sea. In the past, this has been the main cause of plastics in the ocean. In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences estimated that 14 billion (6350293180 kg's) pounds of garbage was being dumped into the ocean every year. That's more than 1.5 million (1,500,000 kg's) pounds per hour.