Good morning everyone. Today I'm talking about a much broader topic than that of Byhalia High School. This topic has been bothering me for quite awhile, actually. Just how much trash is in the ocean.
Most people have done it atleast once. Too tired to go to a trash can, so you just throw your bag or your can in the water. Who will care anyway? Well, your not the only one who does that. Millions, even billions, of people do that. that can equal over billions of pieces of trash. These accumulate over time, even if you only throw one in a year.
just how much is there out there? Almost everyone has heard of the big airplane search, right? Looking for that airplane that went missing? Well, one reason they've had such trouble is that they have constantly been mistaking enormous piles of trash in the ocean for the plane or pieces of the plane. Now, the plane that went missing is a 777 plane. From the information I've gathered, they can hold 314 to 451 passengers. That must be a big plane. Imagine how big of a pile of trash that must be to be mistaken for it.
There is actually, in the Pacific Ocean, a pile of trash so big that it is called Garbage Island. It is roughly twice the size of Texas. Some might even go so far as to say twice the size of the U.S.A. Garbage pieces , as this picture says, break down over time. However, they remain plastics no matter how small they get while absorbing and extruding chemicals. After awhile, they are small enough for fish to eat when they mistake it for zoo plankton. Not much of an animal lover? Well, those small fish are eaten by bigger fish, who then have the plastics chemicals. Then bigger fish eat those. Then we humans catch and eat those bigger fish. Moral of the story? We are poisoning ourselves.
Many garbage patches are invisible, though. Isn't that a relief? It shouldn't be. The closer to invisibility it is, the more fish will eat it. We have found a remarkable number of fish killed by trash in the ocean. Even in my local park, we found a fish choked to death by trash. So many people wont walk the extra few feet to a trash can.
Plastics now end up in our food and, really, anything that comes from the ocean. I could never have imagined this as I grew up. When I was little, I dreamed of being a Marine Biologist. By the time I am old enough, will there even be enough marine life to study?
What many people don't know is that they can help this. All they have to do is (say it with me) recycle. Plastics, which wont break down in the ocean and float on endlessly until consumed by our own food, can be recycled and reused. This would negate a large portion of the problem. After awhile, the trash would wash ashore and we could clean it up from there.
Many people of course do not believe that this is real. I wont go into it in this post, but the people of this world don't believe in a lot of the world's problems. Corruptness in government, global warming, pollution, trash everywhere... unbelieved. And yet... they believe in a invisible force that controls everything in the world. I'm not trying to say that believing in a god or gods is bad, but... Why not work on something a little closer to home? We have PHYSICAL PROOF that there is trash. just go boating in the pacific! You will find trash! Do you know how many icebergs have melted this year? Global warming! Birds and fish have died in great numbers from air and water pollution. As for government corruptness.... come on people. They made being homeless illegal. Enough said.
Don't think that since you are only one person that you can't help. It's that mentality that has gotten us to this point. No more ostrich syndrome! This is all happening!
No comments:
Post a Comment