


Why are our oceans important?
The oceans are full of millions of different species of marine wildlife but, sadly, they are not the only things that inhabit the oceans. Every year hundreds of million tons plastic materials are being made and every year tens of million tons of plastic make their way into the ocean. The countries that put the most plastic into the oceans is China and Indonesia and the number of plastic waste in the ocean is not decreasing at all.
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The main plastics that are being put into the oceans are the polyethylene plastics and the polypropylene plastic. The polyethylene plastics are the one usually used to make milk jugs and plastic bags. The polypropylene plastics are used to make bottle caps, straws and dairy containers.
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Every time it rains and every time there is a small wind more plastic waste travels to the oceans - polluting it more. Three hundred million (300, 000, 000) tons of plastic products get produced every year and a whole eight million (8, 000, 000) tons of plastic make its way to the oceans. Some of the plastic gets there by people littering or putting the rubbish in the wrong bin but lots of the plastic that end up in the ocean is because of how mismanaged the plastic waste is. Instead of finding a way to get rid of the plastic or reuse it, it escapes and the wind pushed it to the ocean. It is very easy to pollute the ocean with plastic since plastic is very lightweight and easy to be carried by the wind, especially plastic bags.
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The plastic in our ocean is killing sea life (plants and fish) and poisoning the fish that we eat so now that every fish we eat, we are eating microscopic pieces of plastic. The amount of plastic in the ocean is not decreasing and getting worse and worse now that factories are making more and more plastic products. Industry experts say that by 2050 there would be more plastic in the ocean than the entire population of fish since we would be using 3 times the amount of plastic and killing of more and more fish for food.
A team of researchers in the United States and Australia led by Jenna Jambeck, an environmental engineer at the University of Georgia, researched the amount of plastic waste in the world's oceans. They found that China and Indonesia are the top sources of plastic bottles, bags and other rubbish that are clogging up global sea lanes. According to the graph, most of the plastic waste in the ocean is caused to mismanagement when it comes to the proper recycling rubbish. The amount of plastic in the ocean coming from China is 12.33 metric tons every year - according to the graph. The difference between plastic in the ocean from China and Indonesia is drastic but it is still too much plastic being put into the ocean.
