Saturday, October 29, 2016

Are you squidding me?


 
            Oceans are extremely important in many ways, and it holds over ninety percent of the planets water. All marine life starts from the ocean and the same cycle has been happening with the animals for millions of years and that’s what makes the ecosystem work. All the animals have certain tasks to do in the ocean, to keep it the way it is. The ocean is very big and absorbs most of the carbon dioxide, and takes in a big amount of oxygen. Even though the ocean is important and needs to be protected, five trillion of plastic pieces were found in the ocean in December of 2014. A researcher named Marcus Ericksen, took samples from the ocean with a mesh and went to twenty-four areas where plastic is most seen in currents where plastic is build up the most. A marine ecologist did the same thing and collected big pieces that they saw right away, where Ericksen collected small pieces with the mesh. A marine biologist mentions micro-plastic and how that it can be tricked by algae, or bacteria and falls to the bottom of the ocean and can be consumed by animals in the ocean. Plastic in our world today, can be renewable by recycling and turning that into paper, clothing, and other items. If everyone tried to recycle, that can help the environment by not getting trash accumulated in our living areas and won’t end up in the ocean. The marine life can die off or things can change due to plastic being in the ocean. There is always going to be plastic in the ocean, along with other things, but we can try to minimize that number. We can also try to not use as much plastic, because sometimes for food or something else, we only use it for so many seconds or minutes and then we throw it away. Minimizing the amount of plastic, we use and disposing of it properly can make a big difference to our environment.

                                  Figure 1-Plastic on or near ocean, due to not recycling.

References:

            Marris, E. 2014. Fate of ocean plastic remains a mystery. Nature. http://www.nature.com/news/fate-of-ocean-plastic-remains-a-mystery-1.16508

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