It seems no place on earth is exempt from the waste of humans. Garbage can be found from the top of Mount Everest and now to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The deepest piece of garbage ever found was discovered in a photo of at the bottom of the trench: a plastic bag, almost 36,000 feet below the sea level.
The Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean cuts nearly 7 miles into the earth, so deep that you could drop Mount Everest inside and it wouldn’t break the surface of the ocean. Once it was a last frontier to be explored; humans reached the surface of the moon before we reached its depths. But now more than our submersibles give evidence of our terrestrial existence and technology – plastic waste. Even the water surrounding the trench faces pollution, with some areas as polluted as rivers in China. The breakdown of plastics is thought to be behind this.
The Deep Sea Debris Database holds a collection of photos taken from dives over the past thirty years. Scientists recently released these photos, and plastic was all too common. Out of all the plastic found, 89% comes from single use items like bags and straws. In addition to plastic, waste from materials like cloth, rubber, metal, and wood also turned up in photos.
Eight million tons of plastic get into the ocean every year. Some is from discarded fishing equipment. Some is dumped from ships. A lot starts with our wasteful habits, discarded convenience items that find their way to rivers and eventually oceans. Communities around the world are starting to ban many single use plastics to help protect marine life and lessen the impact of this petroleum product. Plastic grocery bags and disposable food containers are the most obvious targets. Hawaii and California have banned single use plastic bags. Seattle will implement a ban on plastic drinking straws later this year. Other countries like the United Kingdom, Kenya, Taiwan, and France are way ahead of the United States in banning plastic products.
Many of us have gotten into the habit of using a reusable water bottle or bringing canvas bags to the grocery store. But when you really start to look at the waste created by single use plastics in our lives, you realize so much more can be done.
- Refuse drinking straws at restaurants
- Make your own fizzy water with an at-home carbonation system
- Bring your own container to restaurants to take leftovers home
- Take a week to save every piece of single use plastic you use and see how much piles up. Then choose a few things (or everything!) that you can eliminate
- Join a Ban the Bag group or call your representatives and let them know you support banning single use plastic in your community or state
Lásku k prírode je treba NUTNE učiť už malé deti v rodinách ale aj v škole !!! Potom v dospelosti sa to zmení smerom k láske kprírode ako celku a zodpovednosti !!!
People I can’t say it enough become more environmentally aware. ???
It’s sad what is being done to our environment, the water, the land everywhere. People have a blatant disregard for our animals, & environment. I don’t know how we think, nothing is going to happen to our environment, when it’s treated so badly. We’re definitely making a huge negative impact on our wildlife, and environment. The sad part is, there are things that can be done, before we damage everything until there’s no coming back.
The sad part is that for most people to change, they have to be made accountable, there always needs to be punishment, if the laws are not followed. Without punishment, people don’t want to do anything extra. I have family that STILL don’t recycle and let me tell you they should be. They’re Big families, I don’t know why they don’t recycle but every bit helps. I don’t think there are any consequences for not recycling? I do know that a lot of people complained, about having to buy special bags, that where much more expensive than the ones they use to buy. I wonder if they have any idea, what it’ll be like if we ruin this beautiful world, we are lucky enough to live on?
Plus, we have the whole problem with other countries. Many of them are so over polluted, over populated, poor and the last thing they’re thinking of, is recycling and caring for the environment or animals. They really need to be schooled on how to keep our world clean, stop pollution, use more reusable materials, the fishermen men need not leave any line, nets etc. in the waters.
We all need to come together in the hopes of saving our beautiful world, for the animals, environment, water, the future, ourselves and our future people. It’s not easy, but we have to try, the alternative is something I don’t want to think about.
We have got to be more conscious of the harm we are doing to planet Earth!!