ScrAPES #2 Plastic In The Ocean

ScrAPES #2 Plastic In The Ocean
Podcasts:

World Sailors Call For Plastic-free Oceans : http://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=15-P13-00023&segmentID=3

Testing Boston Harbor for Plastic : http://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=15-P13-00023&segmentID=4

Meeting the Challenge of Plastic Marine Debris : http://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=15-P13-00023&segmentID=5

Topic: Plastic Waste

June 5th 2015 

      The podcast is about plastic being wasted through out the world and especially in the ocean. There is waste everywhere through schools, playgrounds, and everywhere else! 80 percent of the plastic comes from the land. 20 percent of plastic is from sea based human acts (boats, fishing gears). 50 percent of the waste comes from 5 countries in Asia. The U.S. is #20 on the list because we generate a large amount of waste regularly, there are a lot of people living on the coastal area, and 13% of that waste is made of plastic. Tyler O'Brien went to the Boston Harbor to explore more about the micro plastic. Micro plastics can come into the water from land-point sources, rivers, streams, and rain events. They can be bags, bottles, or wrappings. Micro plastics can have bad effects for the environment and human health. She then used 2 metal sieves to collect some micro plastic. On one metal sieve it has 300 micrometers and the other 63 micro meters. Micro plastic is not good for animals because the animals eat the micro plastic and they die and then WE eat those animals and then it moves on through the food web. Animals usually mistake micro plastic to plankton because its that small. 

     The reason why I chose this podcast was because it seemed very interesting and I new nothing about micro plastics before I heard the podcast. I can never imagine something very small can just pile and pile up and become this big huge bad thing for the environment. The amount of plastic just being thrown in the water is unbelievable. What was very interesting was that Sweden doesn't produce that much plastic waste to the environment.  

     This podcast is important to environmental science because it shows us how micro beads, micro plastic, and trash in general is affecting our life style. If we keep producing more and more trash into these oceans/lakes we will soon be swimming with the plastic! We can cut off on buying so much plastic, we can start recycling more plastic. We can also make a change on the type of products we use and to be sure when its necessary to use them.