The Issue

The problem that I am going to investigate is the pollution of our waters. As a result, much of our marine life all around the world is dying because of us. Nowadays our on-the-go lifestyles all require easily disposable products such as soft drink aluminium cans or bottles of water, but the amassment of these products has led to increasing amounts of plastic pollution around the world. As plastic is composed of major toxic pollutants, it has the potential to cause great harm to the environments which we can't see which are underwater. Us as humans are using an excess of plastic and other products which we think our safely gotten rid of but the truth is that it is just dumped into the ocean and expected to get rid of itself whereas in reality it won’t and it just infects our used-to-be clean waters. The goal that this closely relates to is Life Below Water as it affects all marine life all over the globe.

Facts

• There is constantly the equivalent of over 61 billion standard milk bottles floating around in the ocean
• The equivalent of 1 rubbish lorry full of plastic is dumped in the ocean every minute
• Scientists estimate that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean
• In our neighbourhood was the first plastic-free village where all of the shops signed a pledge to not sell any plastic bags at all
• It takes 450 years for a plastic bottle to decompose

Organisations

There are organisations and companies who put on engaging events and articles about the problem to make people more interested in it and encourage them to do something to help. There are different projects set up to raise awareness for clearing up rubbish and debris from the sea and making it into art. One of these projects is called The Washed Ashore Project at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington. This exhibit, which started on 5th September 2016 featured 17 massive sculptures which were made from plastic pollution from oceans. This exhibition had different types of marine life sculptures which included penguins, a jellyfish, an octopus and many more . Each sculpture is made from hundreds of pieces of rubbish which was pick up from the beaches of the West Coast of America. Pieces include fishing nets, bottle caps, soft drink cans and even flip flops that have washed up on beaches. These sculptures send a very important message as well, the large 315 billion pounds (weight) that pollute our oceans is a massive issue that we have to help fight. It is important that we try to resolve this problem as soon as we can and there should be more projects like The Washed Ashore Project that help the cause.

How this affects Us

A large number of fish are dying constantly because of the plastic which has been dumped into their previously clean environments. Fish and other marine life such as turtles mistake these pieces of floating rubbish for food and then they can choke on it which causes their air pipes to be blocked and then they die from asphyxiation and suffocation. You might not realise it but this marine life dying does affect us too. Many communities rely on marine life as their source of food and income. If the marine life around them dies then they will have nothing to eat and therefore die themselves.