Today I come to you to address the problem of the massive amount of trash collecting in the ocean. People need to understand how much waste they put out every day; the average American puts out 4.4 pounds daily (Citibin). If we do not do something about this, many animals that make habitats in the ocean will die. The sea has already become a graveyard because of the 8 million metric tons of plastic entering the ocean yearly (Ocean Conservancy). As I speak, a giant garbage patch is in our ocean. It has been compared with the U.S. state of Texas, Alaska, and even Afghanistan, which shows how massive this patch is.
Plastic pollution kills about one million seabirds and hundreds of thousands of marine mammals by ingestion, strangulation, and slow starvation every year. Some marine creatures, like turtles, mistake plastics and other waste for food. Due to this issue, their digestive systems become blocked, leading to death. Microplastics limit algae and plankton from sunlight, preventing their contribution to photosynthesis. This event prevents marine animals from getting the food they need to survive, ultimately dying of starvation.
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All of this could've been avoided if you only cared enough. Don't believe me? Studies say that the majority of pollution in the ocean is artificial. We are only hurting ourselves and future generations by doing this, but people continue to be careless and throw items into the sea. There is a cleanup process for all of this, but it is not easy. Several things are at stake from ocean pollution, and there should be a solution. The ocean gets polluted in different types of ways. It can be as innocent as a little kid throwing a water bottle into the sea, all the way to a multi-million dollar company dropping tons of waste into the