2021

Capstone Presentation
 My essential question

How does Ocean Pollution

Affect Marine Life?
 contents
Essential question story & why

The main garbage in the ocean and the coverage rate of

marine pollution.

How the marine life affected by the different levels of ocean

pollution.

More factors & The solution I can think to reduce ocean

pollution.

My future plans
The story between this topic and why.
Th e sto r y be t w e e n to p i c :

I n f a c t , w h e n I fi r s t c o n c e i ve d t h i s to p i c , I a l way s p a i d
at te n t i o n to t h e d i r e c t i o n o f t h e s t r e a m o r r i ve r a n d t h e
cove rag e ra te o f g a r b a g e n e a r b y. Th e r e a s o n I o b s e r ve
t h e r i ve r i s be c a u se t h e y w i l l fl o w to t h e o c e a n , a n d
ga r b a ge w o u l d a l so b e . An d i f I d i s c ove r e d s o m e
ga r b a ge , I w o u l d l i ke to p i c k t h e m up a n d p u t t h e m i n to
the bin.

Why I c h o o s e t hi s to p i c ?

I h ave a l s o wa tc h e d s o m e d o c u m e n t a r i e s s a yi n g ho w t h e
o c e a n b e i n g p o l l u te d a n d ho w th a t a ff e ct i n g t h e Ma r i n e
l i fe , so I w o u l d h a ve s ym p a t hy fo r m a r i n e l i fe , t h e n I
i n te n d to u n de r s t a n d m a r i n e p o l l u t i o n.
 Questions
Now a day, It is hard to fi nd other garbage
like plastic wastes damaging ocean that
terrible, but does anyone know what the
coverage of plastics using in human life? And
how many of it fi nally get into the ocean with
diff erent kinds of reasons?

(Can you think of any other factors that aff ect the
sur vival of Mari ne life besi des ocean poll ution?)
 Plastic Products year-
round consumption

Plastic is a synthetic organic polymer made from

petroleum with proper ties ideally suited for a wide
variety of applications, including packaging,
building and construction, household and spor ts
equipment, vehicles, elec tronics and agriculture.
Plastic is cheap, lightweight, strong and malleable.
Over 300 million tons of plastic are produced every
year, half of which is used to design single-us e
items such as shopp ing bags, cups and straws.
 Facts
 At least 8 million tons of plastic end up in our
oceans every year.

 Waste plastic makes up 80% of all marine debris

from surface waters to deep-sea sediments.

 Plastic has been detected on shorelines of all the

continents, with more plastic materials found near
popular tourist destinations and densely populated
areas.
In this photo, plastic and
other marine debris stranded
on the beach on Midway Atoll
in the Northwestern Hawaiian
Islands.
This photo shows a
dolphin eating plastic
product, If the
dolphin swallowed it
by mistake, it would
be suff ocated, unable
to metabolize or
scratch its stomach
or throat, and
eventually die.
 Microplastic
Microplastics are small plastic pieces or
fi bers that are smaller than 5 mm in size.
There will be at least three kinds of
microplastic, which are: Primary
microplastics, Secondary microplastics,
Plastic microfi bers. If a small fi sh take
the microplastic and then eaten by a
bigger fi sh, a chain reaction can cause
some unpredictable consequences
 The seriousness of plastic waste legacy

The specific surface degra dation rate (SSDR), is

im plem ented and used to extrapolate ha lf-lives, u sing a
m ean SSDR for h igh den sity polyethylene(H DPE) in th e
m a rine enviro nm en t, lin ea r extrapola tion leads to estim ated
h alf-lives ran ging from 58 years (bottles) to 1 200 years
(pipes)*(Exc erpt fro m : Degradation Rates of Plastic s in the
Environm ent-- A li Chama s, Hy un jin Moon , J iaj ia Zh en g, Yang
Qi u, Ta rn uma Ta ba ssu m, J un Hee Jan g, Ma hdi A bu -Omar,
Susann ah L. Scott *and Sangw on Suh *). It c an be c o ncluded
th at s om e plastic was tes w hic h are no t ea sy to de grade
w ill stay in the o ce an f o r dec ades o r even f orever.
CAN YOU THINK OF
ANY OTHER FACTORS
THAT AFFECT
MARINE LIFE?
 More Factors List Up

1. Petroleum spill pollution

2. Sulfur dioxide atmospheric emissions pollution

3. Pollution caused by nuclear waste material

discharge

4. Additional factor:Human indiscriminate

killing(this factor will also directly or
indirectly aff ect marine life!)
FACTOR 1 ：
PETROLEU
M SPILL
POLLUTION
 The petroleum spill
Oil is an ancient fossil fuel that we use to heat our homes, generate
electricity, and power large sectors of our economy. But when oil
accidentally spills into the ocean, it can cause big problems-----

Fouling or oiling: those occurs when oil physically harms a plant or

animal. Oil can coat a bird’s wings and leave it unable to fly or strip
away the insulating properties of a  sea otter ’s fur, putting it at risk
of hypothermia.

Oil toxicity: Oil consists of many different toxic compounds. These

toxic compounds can cause severe health problems like heart
damage, stunted growth, immune system effects, and even death.
FACTOR 2:
SULFUR
DIOXIDE
ATMOSPHERIC
EMISSIONS
POLLUTION
 Sulfur dioxide atmospheric emissions pollution

This kind of pollution mainly depends on the gas emission

forms the harmful substance rainfall(such as acid rain).

Sulfur dioxide (SO2), a colorless, bad-smelling, toxic gas;

Sources include power plants, metals processing and smelting
facilities, and vehicles. Like nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide
can create secondary pollutants once released into the air.
Secondary pollutants formed with sulfur dioxide include
sulfate aerosols, particulate matter, and acid rain.
The formation of acid rain
will not only pollute and
destroy the animals and
plants on land, but also
aff ect the sea sur face and
shallow water organisms.
Although people's direct
emission of sulfur dioxide
has improved in recent
years, but I still think
less SO2 travel would
help the marine and
terrestrial animals in
essence.
FACTOR 3
POLLUTION
CAUSED BY
NUCLEAR
WASTE
MATERIAL
DISCHARGE
 Advantages of nuclear power plants

In today's society, nuclear power station has become an

indispensable means of power generation. Unlike fossil fuel power
generation, nuclear power generation does not emit a huge amounts
of pollutants into the atmosphere , so nuclear power generation will
not cause air pollution and it’s not producing the carbon dioxide,
which will aggravate the global greenhouse eff ect. The energy
density of nuclear fuel is several million times higher than that of
fossil fuel. Therefore, the fuel used in nuclear power plant is small in
volume and convenient in transportation and storage. A 1000 MW
nuclear power plant only needs 30 metric tons of uranium fuel a
year, which can be transpor ted by one fl ight.
 Detriment of nuclear pollution

Nuclear power plants will produce high and low order radioactive
waste, it spent nuclear fuel ； although the volume is not large, but
because of the radiation, it is diffi cult to dispose of; Nuclear power
plant reactors contain a large amounts of radioactive materials, if
released into the outside environment in an accident, it will cause
harm to the ecology and people. And if nuclear effl uent and
radioactive materials are discharged into the sea, it will cause
irreversible damage to the sea and organisms, aff ected fi sh can have
genetic problems that make their off spring deformed and uneatable.
The solution I can think to reduce plastic
pollution

The best solution I can think of are---

• reduce throwing garbage into the ocean,

• increase the recycle recover y of plastic,

• even in normal life we shall less and less using

single-use plastic products.

• In fact, most of the plastic we produce ends up

in the ocean that can't be reused, so we should
become more environmentally conscious.
Future plan
• Dissuade others from throwing rubbish into the sea.

• Having more environmentally conscious.

• Help the mari ne li fe as much as I can.

I know that I may not have done enough, and I al so know

that I couldn’ t be able to help marine life too much, but if
people realize that they are uni ntentionall y destroying the
marine environment and l ife, af ter that, people must have
stronger environmental awareness, then I hope the ocean
polluti on would improved by that, so the marine life won’ t
be tormented.
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