Imagine this is how your day goes. You wake up, laying in some else’s garbage, brushing your teeth in it, watching TV while sitting on it, and sometimes even having to eat all the garbage. Sea animals are being forced to do this every day. There is an unbelievable amount of pollution in our oceans, all over the world. Sea animals are having to live in it, swim in it, and even end up eating a lot of it.
We all love watching the whales and dolphins when we’re on a ferry, we love going to the aquarium, and watching the fish, and other creatures play around. Yet, we ignore the TV commercials that show us how much oil has gone into the oceans, or the ads that remind you to recycle by showing us images of penguins with pop can wrappers around their necks.
I remember the first time I visited an aquarium, I was so excited to see the jellyfish. They had a tank, full of plastic bags, where the jellyfish should’ve been. On the tank was a sign, explaining that plastic bags and jellyfish look almost exactly the same to the sea turtles, underwater. If a sea turtle eats a piece of plastic instead of a jellyfish, it either one, chokes on it and dies, or two, it gets wrapped up in their stomach and the turtle will slowly starve to death. Thousands of seabirds, fish, sea turtles, and marine mammals die from plastics every year.
More than 100,000 animals die every year after ingesting or becoming entangled in plastics, over a million seabirds die as well. An estimated 14 billion pounds of garbage ends up in the ocean in each year.
The ocean is the life support system for the planet, providing 50 percent of the oxygen we breathe and regulating climate. The ocean is also the pump that allows us to have fresh water. If we don’t have the oceans, we won’t have life. For example; one blue whale releases three tons of nitrogen and tons of iron in a day, providing nutrients to the phytoplankton. In return the phytoplankton feed the zooplankton, the fishes and ultimately everything that lives in the sea.
There’s so many things we can do to slow this down, and even stop it completely.
Recycling can help make sure that plastics are melted down properly, and re-used. Rather than ending up in some poor animal’s stomach.
You can also use paper bags, rather than plastic bags. Most stores even ask you, paper or plastic? It’s so easy to just say paper, and it benefits the oceans so much.
It’s also extremely easy to just pick up. If you see a plastic bag on the ground, throw it away. If you see a bunch of wrappers, throw it away. I know, your friends might make fun of you for being “that” person, but it’s so much better than knowing that that piece of plastic could end up in the ocean and kill something.
Now, if that still sounds like too much work for you to do, then donate. There are so many organizations out there, that do that type of cleanup. Theoceancleanup.com they use the money to help clean up the plastic, and invent machines to help get it all. You can donate right from your phone or computer, so you can’t complain about it being too much effort. We need the life-support of the ocean.
It’s so easy to just take care of this planet if you put the work in, and it benefits everyone involved. If we take good care of this planet, it will take care of us.
Thank you for listening.
Brittany Lindor, Bothell
