Pollution
We live in a world where each year, billions of plastic waste and pollutants are released into the ocean. Plastic waste and pollutants which originate from our own actions, actions that we are unaware of its effects, and overall actions that are preventable. Polluted oceans are found throughout the entirety of the world, polluted water that not only affects all marine life which is essential to our lives, but it can result in human diseases and negative impacts to coastal economies.
It is evident that there are no positive aspects to pollution, so why does it exist? It exists because of nonpoint source pollution, a result of runoff. Nonpoint source pollution originates from things such as vehicles, farms, and septic tanks. Also, pollution originates from point source solution, a single source that we humans create. From oil spills to chemical spills to damaged factory machines run off that ends up in the ocean.
This act of oil spills is lethal to the lives of the most important marine animals. Oil spills destroy many of the abilities of sea turtles, for example, their ability of insulation. This inability to insulate leads to deaths of birds and mammals from conditions such as hypothermia. Chemical waste impacts the overall pH of the oceans, a pH that is meant to stay equal and stable for all marine life. Chemical waste leads to acidic environments not only impacting marine life, but the lives of humans.
Plastic pollution raises an even greater concern. Plastic in the ocean impacts animals from seabirds, turtles, and whales, to animals as tiny as seahorses and school of fish. These animals are surrounded by so much plastic, they either confuse it as food, ingesting the indigestible plastic, or the plastic wraps around their bodies evidently suffocating or inhibiting them from their normal activities. The idea of microplastics takes a major concern. If marine animals that we humans consume are consuming plastic from the ocean, it is evident that we are also consuming plastic. We are being contaminated by our very own actions. This supports the very idea of what goes around, comes around.
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