Ocean pollution has been a problem in our world for a very long time. Unfortunately, not all of the things causing ocean pollution can be fixed. There are things we can do to help decrease the pollution in the ocean, but things like oil spills we don’t have much control over. One reason we should think about what we throw into the oceans and waterways is the animals we could be killing and poisoning. Ocean pollution is a problem that grows every year.
The pollution going into the ocean comes from a few different sources and some people volunteer to help clean up some of these pollution sources. One of the big contributors are nets and lines from fishing vessels. Debris from land like litter and garbage disposed in open landfills can blow into waterways that lead to rivers and oceans. Major rivers can transport a lot of waste, like the Danube river which transports 4.2 metric tons of plastic into the black sea each day. A few times a year volunteers clean up plastic bottles, straw and bags etc. along some waterways. By just helping out to pick up trash or throwing things away right away it can help a lot with protecting the oceans.
Fish and other marine animals mistake plastic for food, and the plastic almost always poisons them. When a fish ingests plastic it moves up the food chain when a bird eats the fish with plastic inside. The plastic works like a sponge and soaks up toxic chemicals that poison the marine animals. The plastic also can provide a home for germs which can cause disease. Besides eating the plastic, the fish, birds, turtles and even whales can get tangled in the big pieces of plastic. Ideas like making more recycling programs and paying fisherman to pickup floating nets, and fishing lines have been brought up and would also help stop ocean pollution.
In conclusion, the ocean needs help in cleaning up, and it can’t do it itself. The ocean looks its best when its clear of pollution and the ocean is a home to so many. We can’t stop everything from going into the ocean, but we can help minimize the things we can control and not litter. By cleaning up after ourselves we can be saving the fish and other marine animals in the ocean. Let’s save our oceans and the animals and plants inside.
What else do you think could be done to help stop ocean pollution?
Do you think the ocean pollution problem can improve?
What do you think our ocean will look like ten years from now?
I think the ocean will be cleaner. Lots of people are taking the right steps towards cleaning the ocean. Within the next ten years, I believe there will be new technology and organizations that will make the ocean great again. I believe people will come together and end the pollution.
http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/explore/pristine-seas/critical-issues-marine-pollution/
Hi Lauren,
I think your question about what will our ocean look like 10 years from now is a really interesting one. Honestly, I think it will look much the same as it does today for two reasons. First, it will take much longer than a decade to clean up damage we’ve done to the ocean, and to stop actions that continue to introduce pollution. Secondly, while we will make strides in ocean cleanup of our current problems like plastics and nutrient pollution, we will continue to create new issues and pollutants that we are ill-equipped to deal with. My hope is that within 100 or years, or perhaps even shorter like within my lifetime, we will have made substantial contributions to returning our oceans to a condition more similar to what it was like several hundreds of years ago. Very nice article!
After reading your blog, I definitely agree, that a lot more could be done to prevent and clean up the existing ocean pollution. Some ideas that I thought of to help ocean pollution are that beaches could put more garbage cans, so that people have a place to put their trash instead of littering. Another idea that could prevent ocean pollution would be putting filters in the water where rivers flow into oceans, to prevent river pollution, like you said is in the Danube River, from going into the ocean, where it can potentially hurt even more animals. To find more information about ways of preventing ocean pollution, you could look at this website http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Solutions_for_Ocean_Pollution to add on to your blog!
You are very correct about oil pollution. It is a very big problem on the coasts of mostly everywhere. I think people just have to be aware of what they are putting into their environment. Not much can be done to cancel it out, but we can reduce it to a certain minimum. I think the way we’ll be able to stop this is by not littering or throwing certain wastes out into the environment. I do believe the ocean pollution problem can be reduced, but not deleted completely, and in some cases it can be canceled to some minimums that we won’t have to worry about. I think our ocean will look somewhat the same, but I think pollution will have increased due to nobody paying attention to what we should be doing to help our environment. To move your information further use http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=293d7751-d917-418a-acf6-07b92632288d%40sessionmgr4002&vid=15&hid=4106 to add on to your original information.