The Impact Your Trash Truly Has
Have you ever truly thought about where your trash goes? I know it’s an everyday task that we do but hopefully, after reading this you’ll think about it more often. Currently, in the North and South Atlantic, and in the North and South Pacific, and the Indian Ocean there are large garbage patches called gyres. Gyres are caused by global wind patterns, the Earth’s rotation, and the Earth’s landmasses. The biggest one is in the North Pacific Ocean and its at 1.6 Million square kilometers. To put that in perspective that is three times the size of France and two times the size of Texas.
These gyres are causing a great effect on our ecosystems. The climate is being affected, because the sun is heating up the plastic in the gyres causing the water around it to become warmer. When the surface water gets warmer, it causes storms to suck up the heat energy from the gyre causing the storm to become larger and more harmful to the environment. For example, Florida gets a lot of hurricanes because the water surrounding it is warmer from the equator.
Our marine life is in such a toxic environment because of us and the things we carelessly do. 1 million sea birds are being entangled in the waste that is in the ocean and they are ingesting plastic because they see it as food. This is leading them to a long strung out death and 100,000 marine mammals are right behind them. The sea turtles are greatly decreasing in numbers because they see plastic bags as their main source of food, jellyfish. Because they are not made to digest plastic they feel like they are full, which then causes them to slowly starve themselves to death.
If you look at water quality itself, it is not where it should be. Because of the garbage that is covering such a large surface of the water, no sunlight is getting through. Just like plants above water, underwater plants need sunlight to grow as well. Coral Reefs need an abundance of sunlight to be able to grow and when that is not provided, all the life there will die. One-third of every marine life is affected by the growth of coral reefs. Another interesting fact, the harmful chemicals emitted from the plastic enters the inhabitants of the reef, fish. These fish consume break-offs of bigger pieces of waste called micro-plastics. These micro-plastics enter their bloodstream contaminating their body. These contaminated fish are often ingested by natural predators in their ecosystem, thus, poisoning the every growing food chain.
All of these things are a problem because of our own negligence to the ocean. Take notice to how much water bottles you use and how many plastic bags are being used around you. Now that you see how much of a problem this is for our planet maybe some change can start. Instead of plastic bottles use a reusable bottle and instead of plastic bags use paper or reusable bags. You’ve already seen the change from plastic to paper straws in restaurants. The alternative to that would be a metal straw that you can travel with. For use with everyday, don’t use ziplock bags, change to silicone snack bags that are easy to buy and are able to be cleaned. This change will not happen overnight, but if little changes start to happen then, a big impact will be shown. A little truly goes a long way.
