Plastics Pollute Our Ocean

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accessible to plankton and other marine life. Plastic debris and minute plastic particles, including pre-production plastic pellets, sometimes called nurdles or resin beads, are found floating in the ocean and stranded on beaches. Eighty percent of the plastic comes not from ships but from land, where tossed consumer goods eventually travel from beaches and rivers into the ocean (Elsa Wenzel). According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), over 13,000 pieces of plastic litter the surface of each square kilometer of ocean (Mrubin). According to Genevieve Johnson in the "Sailing on a Sea of Plastic" the Algalita Marine Research Foundation based in Long Beach California led by Captain Charles Moore, conducted a survey thousands of miles out to sea in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean known as the North Pacific subtropical gyre in an effort to assess the extent of the problem of plastic pollution in the ocean:

Gyres areas where oceanographic convergences and eddies ...

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not all plastic floats. In fact around 70 percent of discarded plastic sinks to the bottom. In the North Sea, Dutch scientists have counted around 110 pieces of litter for every square kilometer of the seabed, a staggering 600,000 tonnes in the North Sea alone. These plastics can smother the sea bottom and kill the marine life which is found there (Greenpeace).
Just because you cannot see it does not mean it is not there. Whether it sinks or floats, plastics in the sea spell trouble for all the animals in the ocean. Many animals that live in the ocean come into contact with discarded plastic. Because this plastic is not natural to their environment, the animals do not recognize it or ...

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