Name: Chantal Espinal ID: 1013-7825

Marine Pollution

An article made by National Geographic in 2019 talks about marine pollution, it highlights the
impact of pollution on the environment and how it affects the world. Everyday pollutants are
dumped into the ocean making marine pollution a growing problem nowadays. There are two
main types of pollution, chemicals and trash. The first one consist in chemicals that end up into
the ocean by human activities and it is important because chemicals increase the algal growth,
which can be toxic to wildlife and humans. In the other hand, the marine trash includes all
manufactured products, they get accumulate in the ocean and most of it is plastic. The plastic
trash is particularly problematic as a pollutant because it is so long-lasting and take hundreds of
years to disappear.

The pollution implies dangers to humans and animals, many fish confuses plastic items with
food and absorb the chemicals. This is how the micro plastic pollution ends up in the food chain,
and then it became part of the human food. In other way, talking about solutions is important to
prevent and recycle. The single-use plastic is too abundant nowadays, society needs to reduce the
shopping bags and plastic bottles. Is not easy to chance society’s approach to the use of plastic,
but it isn’t impossible. Is important to prevent situations as the one with The Pacific Garbage
Patch, which is an example of such a collection, with plastics and micro plastics floating on and
below the surface of swirling ocean. Even some “biodegradable” plastics usually needs high
temperatures than will ever be reached in the ocean. In conclusion, society should take action
just like United Nations that have enacted regulations to reduce use of plastic products in many
countries.

In my opinion, marine pollution is a great evil that harms us humans and the thousands of species
that live in it. As time goes by, this problem increases because of irresponsible people who are
not aware of the great damage they do to the planet and animals by throwing garbage into rivers
and oceans. The solution to this problem is based on educating people and creating a voice that
makes others aware of how they should take care of the environment, especially people from
large factories that throw all their waste into the sea, without caring about all the harm they
cause. This article definitely taught me more about what marine pollution is and the effects it
brings with it; I feel that everyone can read it so that we can start taking action on this problem.

Link: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/marine-pollution/