Description
Most people get carried away with smiles when they plant a tree, reject paper goods, and go ‘digital’ in the name of rescuing trees from being cut down. This is when they turn a blind eye to the pollution that rages way under their feet, far away from them at the depth of oceans.
Plastic, a product that has made our daily chores so convenient and yet comes with a generational curse of pollution, end up on the ocean bed at 14 million tons per year. It is the most common form of litter in the ocean. According to the IUCN, this plastic accounts for 80 percent of all marine debris discovered from the surface to deep-sea sediments. Plastic litters the shorelines of every continent, with more trash concentrated around popular tourist destinations and densely populated areas. [1]
Source: Statista
The peril that plastic presents to marine life, human life, and all of civilization is well known. It endangers marine creatures who consume or become entangled in plastic trash, resulting in serious injury and death. Food safety and quality, human health, coastal tourism, and climate change are all threatened by plastic pollution.
Source: ecowatch
Is this issue still under curtain though? Fortunately, not. Efforts on all scales ranging from individual awareness to international collaborations are being made to strengthen existing pollution legislation and also bring a change in the structure of waste management and product design. Various missions and projects have cleaned to date, over 70,000 pounds of plastic up from the ocean.