Plastic Islands Essay

675 Words3 Pages
Plastic islands are an accumulation and build-up of improperly disposed garbage in our oceans or large bodies of water. They are patches of waste that have been littered and filtered into our major oceans having exceptionally high concentration of toxic plastic, cans, sludge, and other debris. Over time, plastics will break down into smaller polymers resembling food to fishes and other marine animals. This becomes a problem for us as we are a large consumer of seafood. People should be concerned about this because as we eat fish, the plastic will create many harms and dangers to our body. Cancer being one of them, for example. If mankind were to put more thought into properly discarding their water bottles or other plastics, plastic islands could be avoided or even prevented from worsening in the future. Why and how are plastic islands so harmful? Plastic islands were first discovered only 20 years ago and have only increased since then. Unfortunately, these “floating patches of humanity's garbage have become a permanent feature in the world's oceans.” (McCauley) A research team, led by 5 Gyres Institute Executive Director Dr. Marcus Eriksen, recorded that there has been an increase in the density of plastic pollution in one of the plastic islands near Easter Island in the South Pacific. These giant garbage patches are only going to continue to grow for the next hundred years, regrettably, inevitably growing in any of our five ocean basins. With our overall population increasing, the amount of trash we create also grows, most of it ending up in our world’s oceans. Because of the ocean’s currents, the inadequately disposed of plastics are brought to areas where the currents meet. This is known as the Great Pacific garbage patch or the Pacific trash vortex located in the central North Pacific Ocean. These collections of rubbish are commonly referred to as marine

More about Plastic Islands Essay

Open Document