The Great White of Ocean Problems

It is a cool August day on the east coast. The wind is unrelenting from the east as it whips the flags. The sun is only peaking thru the dark clouds that are evidence of the vicious storm brewing at sea. The twenty foot waves are unforgiving as the pound the beach. This is what we live for; this is hurricane season. The sand is empty except for a lone sign saying “Beaches closed: No Swimming, but the sea is full of the “crazy” people that ignore this warning, the people who know that one wrong move could prove fatal but still rise with the sun and run to the ocean surfboards in hand. There is an eerie calm that comes over me, as I wait for the next wave to charge in looking to claim another victim. I reach my hand into the water not to feel the sea but to part the debris surrounding me. The same wind that pushes the water into colossal waves also pushes the trash to shore. A quick glance to shore shows that the ignored warning sign has friends; plastic bags, bottles, fishnets, and containers now congregate together on the sand. As I paddle into the monster wave I find I will be enjoying my ride with a few plastic companions. These golden days seem to becoming more and more tarnished with the sad reality of ocean pollution.

The government should clean up ocean pollution and new rules on garbage disposal should be enacted before the reckless disposal of garbage leads to the demise of ecosystems. The government needs to fund clean up missions to remove trash, along with crack down on beach littering. With out this ocean pollution is becoming a very serious issue that has had vastly negative effects on our environment. While some people on Capital Hill argue this is not a serious issue because the effects are not immediately noticeable the more environmentally sensitive can clearly see how important this issue is to the world. With out giving immediate attention to this the way we live right now is in serious jeopardy. The garbage floating through the ocean is like a shark. It is seldom seen and moves swiftly through the waters. Most people are unaffected by sharks on a daily basis but eventually the shark will bite its victim.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a “patch of trash” floating in the ocean located approximately half way between San Francisco and Hawaii. This Patch is estimated to be the size of Texas and contains many types of trash but mostly plastic, which cannot be broken down naturally. This patch has accumulated due to the currents of the ocean carrying the trash from around the sea and keeping it locked in one spinning whirlpool. As Erdman, a scientist from the University of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography writes, “This giant garbage patch, in addition to plastic, also contains huge masses of fishing nets, which destroys ecosystems around the Hawaiian Islands. But the plastic is really the toxic killer. While it slowly degrades, it turns into increasingly smaller bits. We find a lot of skeletons of seabirds on the Islands and their gut content is just filled with plastic. As the larger animals and marine life eat the smaller animals, this plastic eventually ends up in the human food supply, too.” (Erdman, 2009). The longer this patch goes unattended the more it impacts our food supply until it ultimately makes much of our seafood inedible.

The Great Pacific Garbage patch is comparable to a landfill, only larger then any landfill in existence. As we know the land that the landfill is built on is unusable to humans due to the abuse the land takes. What most people don’t realize is that these patches are having the same effects on the ocean as a landfill would on the land. A scienctist who studies Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics reports that; “The conclusions from this study support the idea that continued emissions in industrialized countries of CFC-11, CFC-12, CFC-113, and CH3CCl3 are still coming from destruction of ODS-containing material” (E. L. Hodson, 2010). This study has found that ozone-depleting chemicals are coming from our landfills. With this “landfill” in the ocean being the largest landfill in existence it is unfathomable how much ozone-depleting chemicals are released from it on a yearly basis. These chemicals need to be stopped in order to fight global warming. With such a large effect throughout the world to go green, we are ignoring one of our largest enemies in the fight.

Not only is ocean pollution having a negative impact on the natural world, it also may start to have a negative impact on the economy. Beaches a crossed The Unites States of America, and the world are a great source of revenue from tourism. Property along the coast is also notoriously known as some of the priciest real estate in the world. With our oceans on their way to becoming toxic waste tourism and property values can diminish rapidly. Ocean pollution is already becoming a harsh reality to those who live by the shore. An oceanographer refers to ocean pollution as an animal. “It moves around like a big animal without a leash. When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. The garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic” (Marks, 2008). While right now it is only a reality during storms as more and more trash is dumped into the sea it will become a daily sight.

Unless we take a proactive approach in stopping this pollution and cleaning up as much pollution as possible we are looking at a scary future. First and foremost the government needs to invest some money into clean up projects. In addition, we can all take small steps as shown by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Correctly dispose of hazardous household products, use nontoxic household products whoever possible, recycle and dispose all trash properly, use natural fertilizers, recycle used motor oil, and reduce plastics. (Natural Resources Defense Council, 2001)

It is clear that we can no longer wait for this problem to impact our lives before giving ocean pollution the attention it deserves. Not only can this have a serious and highly negative impact on our environment and food source but it can destroy and entire economy. A proactive approach needs to be thought up and enacted immediately.