Hi Readers! My name is Christie and while I
have many interests, there are none more important than saving our oceans.
After visiting many beaches in my lifetime, I have come to realize the negative
impact that humans have on our oceans and oceanic wildlife. I have dedicated
much of my spare time to researching ways to help our oceans, beaches and
wildlife. This blog was created as an extension of the dedication to my goal to
educate the public and provide solutions to avoidable problems.
Plastic bottles. They’re convenient, compact
and make our lives easier while on the move. They are also highly mismanaged as
irresponsible people dispose of these bottles in the trash, on the ground and
off boats. Plastic is not a biological product, so it does not biodegrade.
Actually, plastic bottles photodegrade, a process that utilizes the sun’s
ultraviolet light and oxidation to penetrate the molecular polymer in plastics,
breaking it into smaller plastics over time. That’s good, right? Wrong. Unlike
with biodegradation, these plastic particles never fully go away. After the
lengthy photodegradation process, which is close to years, these plastic
particles become molecular in size. When these molecular particles are oceanic,
they create a soupy film on our ocean’s surface.
Now, let’s discuss plastic that hasn’t
photodegraded, yet. We’ve all seen the picture of the turtle with the plastic
ring around its neck and it does tear at the heartstrings. What you may not
have seen are pictures of albatross who have suffocated or even starved to
death due to ingested plastic bottlecaps. These bottlecaps get lodged in these
great bird’s throats, cutting off the passageway to the lungs. If the bottlecap
does get fully ingested, there is a high-risk of the foreign object obstructing
the digestive tract, resulting in organ injury and starvation. There are many,
many more examples of how these plastics are harming our marine wildlife, this
is only one of many that has made a lasting impact on my life.
Ok, so now you may not think plastic bottles
are so harmless after all, right? Great! Now, let’s talk about what you can do
to save our oceans. The first, fundamental thing to do is to reduce your
dependency on plastic. I’m not saying to live completely plastic-free, that’s
almost impossible in this modern society we live in. But, we can use
alternative bottling solutions such as glass, ceramic and steel bottles. There
are many different filtering devices that we can use with our tap water. This
not only saves our oceans, but can also help save you money! A 12-ounce bottle of water can cost a dollar
or more whereas a gallon of filtered tap water typically cost under ninety
cents. Plastic pollution was created by people so the solution must also come
from people. I hope this blog post shed a little light on how we have left a
lasting, negative impact on our oceans, beaches and marine wildlife.
