Animals are dying

Plastic is killing animals, and plants mainly in the aquatic life. According to reuseit.com "plastic pieces outweigh surface zooplankton in the Central North Pacific by a factor of 6-1". Zooplankton is one of the smallest living things in the ocean, and there are more pieces of plastic in the ocean. They are consuming the plastic, which is later passed on to whoever eats the plankton and eventually killing the consumer. Reuseit.com also states that of "500,000 albatross chicks born each year on Midway Atoll, about 200,000 die of starvation". Adult albatrosses mistake plastic trash for food and end up feeding it to their chicks. Animals do not know that plastic is harmful for their babies so they give it to their babies as food. Once the babies consume the plastic they eventually die because their stomach cannot take and cannot breakdown that kind of thing down. Plastic is the reason many animals are dying are yet we are not protecting them from the harm created by plastic. Plastic bags and bottles and hard to breakdown and this is creating a huge problem to marine animals. According to ecologycenter.edu about 100,000 animals such as dolphins, turtles whales, penguins are killed every year due to plastic bags. Most of these animals eat the plastic and this eventually leads to the animal’s death. The worst part about this is that once the animal dies it decomposes, but the plastic bag still lays around. Another victim then comes and eats the plastic again, and the same things happen to this creature. It just becomes a cycle in which more and more animals die. This is why I want to stop plastic consumption. I do not want more animals having to pay for the errors the humans are making.

PLastic bags and bottles effects on the ocean

Plastic can be very broad, but when talking about plastic bottles and plastic bags we can be specific enough. Plastic now a day is used to create many things, which we buy. For example when we go to the store many of our food is in plastic bags. Many of the liquids we buy are in plastic bottles, and most of the stuff we take home is taken in plastic bags. Most of time, once we used this product, we end up tossing it into the garbage where is later thrown into landfills. According to reuseit.com "60 billion single-use drink containers were purchased in 2006, and 3 out of 4 were thrown out directly after use." This means that 75 percent or 45 billion containers such as water bottles we thrown directly in to the trash and filling up more of our landfills or contaminating our oceans. Our oceans are one of things is suffering the most from our poor use and disposal of plastic bottles. According to plasticvpaper.com "ten percent of the plastic produced every year worldwide winds up in the ocean. 70% of which finds its way to the ocean floor, where it will likely never biodegrade. Never biodegrade this means that the plastic we are producing will live longer than us and by the way it will also contaminate our oceans. Plastic takes too long to degrade and many times in never degrades because in ends ups in landfills where it only ends up with more trash or in the ocean. Earth is a beautiful place and there is only one available and its up to us to decide what we want to do with it.

Motivated, and Inspired by Charles Moore

Capt. Charles Moore on the seas of plastic | Video on TED.com

When I was looking for ideas of how my project was going to be like. I searched different sources, watched different videos, and read different blogs. I wanted to find things that plastic is really damaging and they were just some many things, yet i needed to be specific. Suddenly I heard of this place called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and I started wandering what this was. I typed onto YouTube and I got this video created by Charles Moore. In this video I learned about this unfortunate place in the ocean where all this plastic is beginning to accumulate. Its accumulating because plastic is not biodegradable. In this video I also learned about how it is affecting our oceans. Moore shows some heartbreaking pictures of dead birds whose stomach contains plastics. The birds had been confusing this bright colorful plastic trash for food.

In the video Moore also states a great line in which he says, "Only human create trash than the earth cannot decompose." This means that since we are the creators of this mess its up to us to find a solution. Its up to us to decide what are we going to do with all these plastic that is not getting destroyed. If you take a look at Moore's video you can see the amount of plastic bottles that is consumed each year. The numbers are ridiculous, and yet its not stopping.

Moore also has a really good point when he talks about recycling, and he also shows a chart of the amount of plastic that is actually being recycled. The numbers are really low which means that the only real solution to stop "The Great Patch" from getting bigger is stop plastic consumption since it cannot really be recycled. Like Moore said there is no way that people can clean up the already contaminated ocean. Our only option is to reduce the consumption of plastic so that no more trash in tossed into the ocean.

I really loved this video and the images and the way he articulated this problem of plastic in the oceans really impacted me since I had no idea about it. I then began to tell many of my friends and teachers about it. Many were like what the heck are you serious, other were like no way it must be only rumors. I really wished they were rumors, but importunately it's the truth.

I encourage everyone who reads this blog to watch this video, its amazing and I hope that it helps you realize that the ocean needs our help.

An introduction to plastic

This is a photo taken by: Chris Jordan

My name is Bryan Acuna, and I attend the Chinquapin School. Every year my school encourages the seniors to develop a project about something they are passionate about. The project should somehow impact on the world.

My project is going to be about plastic. I will talk about how making plastic is affecting the health of many people, animals, and our environment. I will specifically talk about how plastic bags and plastic bottles are contaminating our environment, and killing wildlife. I will also talk about how the creation of plastic, and the use of plastic, is affecting human health. I want to inform people about the problems trash is creating and also give the people certain solutions. Trying to convince people to reduce plastic consumption is going to hard, but I know at least that I tried my best by informing the world.

I will start to inform people by introducing the problem which plastic is creating. I will blog about the different effects of plastic, and I will explain some of the issues that are still going on. I will post some visuals and also facts of bad effects that plastic is having in our world. I will also try to have a link to the pages to which I am getting the information from or to pages where you can get more information. Also I would love to have some comments with links or with information that can help my research.

My ultimate goal is to have inform lots of people so that they can begin to make a change for themselves. By change I mean changing their habits of using too much plastic or just informing other people about the bad impact of plastic. I was informed about plastic and its bad effects and that is why I decided to make a change. I had no idea of what kind of effects plastic had on the environment, and I know there are lot of people who have no clue as well. I want to inform them and encourage them to inform others.