Essay Sample: Plastic in The Ocean

The ocean is roaring viciously. Harsh waves smash the beach, misplacing small pebbles. Many vibrant blue fish slowly glide across the deep blue. A man tosses a small water bottle into the ocean, trying to get rid of his useless trash. The small, sharp plastic moves toward one of the unexpecting fish. The blue fish tries extremely hard to escape the container’s grasp, but the bottle heartlessly traps the fish. The fish squirms and squishes rapidly, trying to get out of the tough plastic covering it. Its friends and family try to help, but the grip is too tight to push it off. The oxygen in the water diminishes as the fish’s hope of getting out slowly extinguishes. It suffocates, wondering who placed the trap in its home.

Many other cases exist of marine life being trapped by people’s trash. Several different forms of trash can harm marine life in different ways. Plastic debris is the main reason why sea animals are killed: the plastic pollutes the water with poison, and that kills many animals who breathe it. Also, many animals are trapped in plastic bags and bottles. This is very dangerous for animals because they can be scraped, which leads to infection, or they can be suffocated due to a lack of oxygen. Continuing on, Pewtrust.org says, “fish, seabirds, sea turtles, and marine mammals can become entangled in or ingest plastic debris, causing suffocation, starvation, and drowning” (Plastic Pollution Affects Sea Life Throughout the Ocean, 1). Starvation and drowning also affect other fish and sea creatures that mistake plastic for food. This leads to starvation and drowning because the plastic can cause the animal's belly to fill up, resulting in no more food to be able to enter the body. Finally, if garbage is dumped into the ocean, that can cause oxygen levels in the water to decrease. This can lead to animals such as dolphins, sharks, whales, and penguins going extinct. 

Not just marine life is affected by sending the wrapper of last night's meal into the ocean, humans are too. Humans can get food poisoning by disposing of plastic into the ocean. This is due to marine life being poisoned by plastic emissions from the water, leading to seafood being toxic. Also, the number of oxygen in the world will drastically decrease, since over 50% of the world’s oxygen producers live in the ocean. Because humans need oxygen to survive, and fewer plants in the world can lead to global warming, this is damaging to society. This phenomenon is caused by carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, trapping heat, which is only absorbed by plants. Also, dumping trash into the ocean causes the release of methane gas. Production of this gas is extremely harmful to humans because methane is toxic and can lead to death. 

Over 90% of the human population supports recycling, but only around 35% of it actually recycles. As a matter of fact, even though not many people do it, recycling is something that does not take much effort and can have great benefits. Firstly, recycling can help reduce the amount of trash in the ocean due to less trash accumulating in landfills that needs to be disposed of. Secondly, recycling reduces environmental damage caused by mining because there is more material to use for building. Thirdly, recycling jobs increase because there is more plastic to recycle, which leads to a boosted economy. Epa.gov states “studies found that in a single year, recycling and reuse activities in the United States accounted for 681,000 jobs, $37.8 billion in wages; and 5.5 billion in tax revenues” (Recycling Basics, 1). Finally, recycling can also help boost natural resources such as timber, water, and metals. 

In conclusion, littering in the ocean instead of recycling can kill marine life, reduce oxygen, increase global warming, cause food poisoning, and also make ocean water toxic. To summarize, recycling is extremely beneficial, easy to do, and can save lives. Possible solutions to this problem is to always recycle, use reusable items, stop using toxic chemicals, and conserve water.