“We’re treating the oceans like a trash bin: around 80 percent of marine litter originates on land, and most of that is plastic. Plastic that pollutes our oceans and waterways has severe impacts on our environment and our economy,” writes the Natural Resource Defence Council (NRDC).
“Seabirds, whales, sea turtles and other marine life are eating marine plastic pollution and dying from choking, intestinal blockage and starvation.
Plastic pollution affects every waterway, sea and ocean in the world. When we damage our water systems, we’re putting our own well-being at risk. This pollution also has huge costs for taxpayers and local governments that must clean this trash off of beaches and streets to protect public health, prevent flooding from trash-blocked storm drains, and avoid lost tourism revenue from filthy beaches”.
A petition organisation Avaaz says that a new study has found that by 2050 there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish.
The study, conducted by the World Economic Forum says that if we keep producing (and failing to properly dispose of) plastics at predicted rates, plastics in the ocean will outweigh fish pound for pound in 2050.
“Worldwide use of plastic has increased 20-fold in the past 50 years, and it is expected to double again in the next 20 years. By 2050, we’ll be making more than three times as much plastic stuff as we did in 2014,” according to the report.
According to the NRDC there are effective ways to stop plastic pollution to make sure that it never reaches the water.
“We all need to do our fair share to stop plastic pollution: individuals need to recycle and never litter, but producers of single use plastic packaging need to do more too”.
“We need producers to design packaging so that it is fully recyclable, so that there is less waste. We also need producers to help cover the costs of keeping their products out of the ocean,” the council writes on their website.
The Plastic Ocean organisation says that plastic pollution in our seas is an environmental catastrophe of our own making.
“We produce over 300 million tonnes of plastic every year Equivalent to the combined weight of all the adult humans on earth. Nearly half of this we use just once then throw it away”.
The Hook would like to hear your views on Ocean Pollution, what are the possible solutions we could implement to stop ocean pollution?