A Plastic Ocean

Hey guys!

Plastic is currently found virtually everywhere. From polypropylene bottle caps to vinyl fishing nets stretching tens of meters long, it seems plastic has made a debut in the world's industries. After all, plastic is extremely cheap, durable, and takes up less space to transport due to plastic's ability to be packaged extremely thin.

In class this week, my classmates and I watched an incredibly eye-opening documentary called A Plastic Ocean. This film discusses the destruction plastic has caused to our marine environments, along with educating viewers on how they can decrease the amounts of plastic harming the oceans and lakes we call home.

Photograph by Jonathan Alcorn, (Bloomberg/Getty)

The image above shows tiny pieces of plastic found near the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a massive island of trash floating between California and Hawaii. This patch is home to an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, ranging from bigger plastic chunks of fishing material to the diminutive flakes swept up by this glass jar. However, "A Plastic Ocean" explains the GPGP only makes up a small amount of the 5 trillion pieces of plastic afloat in the ocean today. Additionally, the documentary states that by 2050, plastic production will triple, making the annual 8 million tons dumped into the ocean increase to around 24 million.

Now, you may wonder how come this plastic build-up hasn't, like, "broken down" into oblivion. News Flash! Plastic takes thousands of years to completely disintegrate. In the meantime, the plastic breaks up, into "microplastics" known as plastic smog. The microplastics attract toxics such as waterborne chemicals, which when consumed, migrate into the animal's flesh, causing foods we consume daily such as salmon and tuna to become unsafe to eat.

Watching "A Plastic Ocean" was definitely a wake-up call for me to limit my plastic consumption, and I definitely advise you to do so too!

- Hannah