There are a lot of dirty facts about pollution in the ocean that is either hidden from us or us as humans don’t come across easily. Water Pollution in the oceans is a gigantic threat. Its gravity is usually underplayed by the media and the governments. In this scenario especially, ignorance is not bliss. We need to come to terms with the atrocities being inflicted upon the mute and harmless creatures and eco-systems in our seas. The largest marine bio-system in the world “Great Barries Reef” has already stopped growing and is shrinking at an alarming rate.
But this is just stretching the surface, here are some more facts that will put things into a perspective:
- If we maintain our current carbon emissions practices, the surface waters of the ocean will be approximately 150% more acidic than they are now.
- More-acidic waters result in the bleaching of coral reefs and make it harder for a few sorts of fish to sense predators and for others to hunt prey.
- Over $110 million and 200 jobs have already been lost due to declining harvests linked to more-acidic waters estimated to possess cost the Pacific Northwest’s oyster industry.
- Most of the trash within the seas are formed out of plastic which incorporates the single-use grocery bags, water bottles, drinking straws, and yogurt containers, among eight million metric plenty of the plastic items we toss (instead of recycling), won’t biodegrade.
- While some plastic is dumped directly into the sea, an approximate of 80% marine litter makes its way into the ocean slowly from land-based sources―including that far inland―via storm drains, sewers, and other routes.
- Consider 60,000 commercial tankers and container ships that commute across the seas at any given time. The underwater racket that results creates a sort of “smog” that reaches nearly every corner of the ocean and shrinks the sensory range of marine wildlife.
- Chemical dispersants utilized in the most important spill response efforts—1.8 million gallons were released into the Gulf after the BP disaster—are dangerous pollutants themselves.
- The junk in the ocean is not just separate or it just doesn’t sink or decompose as quickly. There are 5 large garbage patches that can also be seen from some, the biggest one is twice as large as the state of Texas.
- You will be surprised to know that over 80% of the plastic trash in the ocean comes from Asia. The largest contributors being China and Indonesia.
- We can only account and clean about 30% of the garbage that actually is being dumped it the ocean. The rest of the 70% just sinks down, never to be recovered again.