Plastic Pollution is Killing Coral Reefs Essay Example

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, a girl named Zola was going to the beach with her family. They packed the car with all their beach essentials and drove off to the beach. When they arrived, they took everything out of the car and made their way down the wooden plank to the sand. Bailey her younger said, “Guys I found the perfect spot!!” The family made their way to the spot, Zola took a glance at the spot and decided the spot was indeed perfect. Zola looked around and saw water bottles in the sand. She ignored her brain telling her “Pick it up” She took off her sundress and put sunscreen on and made her way down to the ocean. As her feet slowly touched the cold blessing water she felt at home. As her chest hit the water, she started swimming. Zola used her arms and legs to push herself into the deep blue sea. As she was swimming, she felt a piece of the plastic brush against her legs, she reached out and picked up the plastic water bottle. Plastics have a major impact on today’s society including harming the reef, living in the plastic age, and humans trying to fix the problem. 

First off, Plastic harms the coral reef. According to Source 2 by Brigit Katz, "A new study has highlighted the distressing scope of yet another threat to coral reefs: Plastics’ To elaborate a bit, the coral reef is already having problems and plastics are just adding on to the problem All of the creatures living on those coral reefs are struggling to get by because of plastics. Coming from the same source (two),” Plastic debris can cause physical injury and abrasion to coral tissue. The plastic debris slices open the skin of the corals, which exposes them to pathogens” A pathogen is a bacteria, virus, or other microorganisms that can cause diseases. It is sad how something is so small can cause so much damage. Source 2 states “The team at Cornell University estimates that at least eleven billion plastics items are trapped in coral reefs in the Aisa-Pacific.” That is crazy Plastic is harming the reef.

In addition, you make are working on cleaning up the plastic. In source 2, “we can't clean up the problem,” Harvel told fears.” It's so much easier than climate change.” human is starting to clean up the plastic, and cleaning this is easier than climate change according to the source 3, the ocean cleanup has a system for removing plastic from the sea." Some people have already made systems to clean up the plastic that is good because humans need that, human needs something to help clean up the mess they have made. According to the same source “The ocean cleanup system Is a floating barrier. It uses a giant screen that hangs below the water’s surface. The screen traps pieces of plastic as they float pie. It does not trap marine animals.” this is very smart to collect plastic. As the net is cleaning up plastic it is not harming the sea creatures. It’s brilliant. To summarize, humans are working on cleaning up plastic.

Furthermore, humans live in a plastic cages. Huh? What does that mean? It means according to source one that “plastics has redefined material culture and artifacts we leave behind.” “It will be found in stratified layers in our trash deposit.” Plastic has such a big impact on society/generation, if you look around you bet you will find at least two things made of plastic around you.  Source one stated that “About six billion tons of plastic have been made and spread around the planet from forest to oceans.” That's crazy that six billion pieces of plastic have been made. all six buildings have spread to oceans and forests. Generally speaking, humans are living in the plastic age.

All in all, plastic has made a major impact on the planet including harming the reef, living the plastic age, and trying to fix a problem. Zola realized that plastic is harming the planet. She went around the beach picking up the plastic she found and throw it in a bag and threw it in the recycling bin so it would be recycled, and it wouldn't fly away. Zola is doing a part in helping the environment. “We are being choked to death by the amount of plastic that we throw away. It's killing our oceans. It's entering our bodies in the fish we eat.” The quote is by Kevin Bacon.