It Doesn't Just Affect Us...

When we drop rubbish, it isn't just us who suffer. The rubbish you drop travels to the ocean and kills sea life. The plastic in the ocean sinks to the ocean floor, eaten by sea animals and is introduced into the food chain. There are some cases of medicines not fully digested by human, ending up in the fish that we consume.

 It is not just litter dropped near the coast that ends up in the ocean. Fertilizers spread by farmers inland also travel to the ocean through rivers and streams. The consequence of these introduced, excess nutrients allows large amounts of algae to grow, robbing the water of oxygen and creating dead areas where little of no marine life exists. There are in excess of 400 such areas recorded around the world.  These zones are known as dead zones.

 Marine animals additionally  consume other solid pollution constantly dropped in the ocean from both land and see (ships). Animals mistake it for food and  consequently consume it, often with fatal consequences. An example of this is  floating syndrome, mainly present in turtles. It is when turtles mistake a floating plastic bag for food and eat it.  The plastic bag then is caught in their stomach and they cannot dive to hunt for food.

Floating solid pollution, such as fishing nets, can also create hazards for marine animals as they can drift in the ocean for years, ensnaring animals. In some parts of the world, ocean currents for a transportation system for rubbish, carrying it hundreds of kilometers and  depositing it into one large area. There is one such place in the Pacific Ocean, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. One captain who traveled through this patch said "It seemed unbelievable, but I never found a clear spot. In the week it took to cross the subtropical high, no matter what time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere: bottles, bottle caps, wrappers, fragments."

 

Think of this next time you drop rubbish on the ground. Just because you don't drop it at the beach, it doesn't mean that it won't make it to the ocean.