What is the Problem?
THE RESEARCH
SHOWS....
There is a massive amount of plastics in the oceans of the world. This is a huge problem because the plastics are harmful to the environments, and are very destructive to the animals and plants who live in them. Some scientists in San Francisco had found in their research that "20 countries are responsible for more than 80 percent of the plastic going into the ocean annually. China is the worst -- with about 2.4 million tons. The United States is number 20, responsible for about 750,000 pounds.” (CBS news)
Those numbers are extremely high. The plastics mostly come from regular people throwing their trsh away on the stret, and the bottles going into the sewer systems and rolling off of beaches and floating into the middle of the oceans. “Shipping also contributes to the littering of the oceans: this includes waste from commercial vessels and leisures that is deliberately
dumped or accidentally lost overboard and, above all, torn fishing nets. As most of the litter is plastic, which breaks down very slowly in water and may persist for decades or even centuries, the amount of debris in the marine environment is constantly increasing.” (world ocean review)
Garbage is also constantly being thrown into the oceans through human activity, so these numbers are still just an estimation. They most likely are much higher now than when this article was published. “ The statistics are alarming: the National Academy of Sciences in the USA estimated in 1997 that around 6.4 million tonnes of litter enter the world’s oceans each year. However, it is difficult to arrive at an accurate estimate of the amount of garbage in the oceans because it is constantly moving, making it almost impossible to quantify.” (world ocean review)
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