The ocean accounts for 96.5% of all the earth’s water, about 15% of the world’s living organisms reside in the oceans and 5% in the freshwater bodies. The ocean also accounts for around 8 million tonnes of the total waste generated by humans over the course of a year, which is roughly 3.2% of all the trash generated in the world, which might not seem like much, but it is enough to put about a 100 million aquatic lives in danger every year.
A hundred thousand marine animals lose their lives by just getting entangled in the plastic debris. And these are just recorded deaths. Researchers have indicated that more than have the sea turtle have been affected by either getting entangled in the plastic debris or by ingesting it. Many sea turtles after ingesting the plastic starve to death, since the plastic doesn’t get digested and stays in them, they always feel full. As it’s known, turtles come to the beaches to lay eggs and reproduce, the debris on the beaches have subsequently increased the beaches’ temperature resulting in the young ones not surviving.
It is shown that just eating 14 pieces of the plastic the risk of death increases exponentially. Especially for the younglings, even half of what is suggested for an adult could result in certain death.
The creatures are crying out for help, they don’t know what the difference between a little piece of plastic and a little fish is. Much of the ocean’s life drifts around the ocean in currents. Much like fish, so do the little plastic pieces.
As of january 2015 there were 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic and other kinds of debris in the ocean. And it’s been increasing ever since.
Creatures like dolphins who do understand the difference between a fish and piece of plastic, don’t usually end up eating them directly, but they are predators, which feed of smaller fishes, which in turn don’t really understand the difference. The negative effects of the consumption of plastic compound over time when it’s consumed by a smaller fish and then moves up the food chain.
For decades, maybe centuries we have been abusing this world and it’s resources to meet our needs, more like our wants. And only now are we starting to the negative effects of it on the life around us. What does this concern a common person with? Why do we have to start thinking about our planet when the generations before us didn’t? These are questions everyone asks themselves but they never look for the answer. Our children will grow up in world where a lot of the species that we saw growing up would’ve been extinct for decades and they will be surrounded by news of death and misery. We have made this planet unlivable for every other spices that ever existed. And the pacific islands littered with dead birds indicates the same.
You can pick up any one of those bird carcasses and they all will have one thing in common, a stomach full of plastic debris. They might’ve died of age or any other reasons, but this trait stays true. This debris mainly consists of really small pieces of plastic which were consumed by the birds, as they thought it was a small fish.
These plastic debris is everything from a little piece of candy wrapper to a part of a child’s toy. These are thing we don’t intend to dispose into the ocean or the water bodies, but these are things which end up into the ocean due to the poor management of trash.
But we are humanity, and with humanity there is always hope. Slowly but surely, measures are being taken and there is some difference. The trash nets at the end of every sewage canal and the filtration of the sewage. The beach clean up drives, the ocean grove rehabilitation drives and many such drives are helping the aquatic life and the life around it. Life in itself is the most valuable asset to the earth, as each species which goes extinct is just another domino in the eventual fall of humankind. Just like the dolphins are affected by the consumption of fishes that ingested plastic, there is another spices which are at the top of the food chain, which are already being affected by the consumption sick animals, example: the corona virus -19. It is us, humankind, studies have shown how seafood is affecting the human body in a negative manner, and it all originates to that one little fish ingesting that little piece of plastic.
Let’s prevent it from even starting and recycle your trash.