Intervention 2: A Plastic Protest

 

For my intervention, I decided to tackle the topic of plastic pollution. It is an issue that carries great importance to us, our ecosystem, and to our home mother earth. We use plastic in almost everything and discard it so wastefully and carelessly.  Ten out of ten chances you will see some form of plastic tossed somewhere around the ground. Now the problem is that this is so common and normal that people don’t think anything of it.

 

            Now let’s look at the facts. At least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year. This currently makes up 80% of all marine debris found from surface waters to deep-sea sediments. The main source of this debris is coming from urban and stormwater runoff, sewer overflows, littering, illegal dumping, and inadequate waste disposal and management. Many countries lack the infrastructure to prevent plastic pollution such as landfills, incineration facilities, recycling capacity, and circular economy infrastructure. This leads to leakage into rivers and the ocean.

            

            This leakage of plastic harms the ocean health, marine life, and us. Marine life will suffer through ingestion, suffocation, and entanglement of this plastic debris. Sealife such as turtles, whales, seabirds, and fish mistake plastic for prey and ingest this plastic. This later leads to starvation since their stomachs are filled with plastic and lead to infections. When it comes to human health, microplastic have been found in tap water, beer, salt, and is present in all samples collected in the world’s ocean. The fish also contain this microplastic from the water which can later end up in us when we consume seafood. This is a serious health hazard. Next time we decide to litter, we need to think about it in way of littering in our own living room or a friend’s living space. Very not okay and if we don’t litter in the space we live in, why should we litter in the living space of other living organisms. We all live in this home called Earth. Let’s take care of it.