Plastic pollution in ocean

PLASTIC POLLUTION IN OCEAN

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Overview•Introduction on plastics •Magnitude of the plastics•Sources•Impacts•Solutions/mitigation

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What is plastic?

•Plastics are synthetic material

•Usually made from oil or natural gas

•Plastics are made by linking thousands of monomers(like bisphenol-A (BPA) and vinyl chloride, are harmful and toxic).

•The main types are : • Polyethylene(bottles,jars,bags,cups)

• Polystyrene(cups,pellets)

• Polypropylene(bottlecaps,drinkingstraws)

• PVC(shoes,pipes,furniture)World Oceans Day 2015 3

Magnitude of problem increasing

• Rapid and substantial increase in anthropogenic debris on the ocean surface and beaches over recent decades.

• Global plastic production has increased from 5million tons to over 250 million tons current.

• Because • Inexpensive• Light weight• Strong• Durable• Easy to use

• About 3 metric tones of plastic is estimated to be entering the oceans every 15sec. World Oceans Day 2015 4

We use over 1 million plastic bags every minute

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How long can plastic take to degrade?

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Main sources

•Approximately 80% comes from land-based sources:

• Litter(pedestrians, motorists, beach visitors)

• Industrial discharges(pellets and powders)

• Garbage management(containers, trucks, landfills)

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•Approximately 20% comes from ocean-based sources:

• Commercial fishing vessels

• Cargo ships (discharge of containers and garbage)• Pleasure cruise ships

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Problems for people

•Looks dirty•Decreases tourism value•Pollutes swimming areas •Can cause harm & injury to people

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Wildlife issues

• Entanglement

• Ingestion

• Chemicals

• Invasive species

• Coral reefs can be harmed

• Ghost fishing

•Over 1 000 000 sea birds, 100 000 marine mammals and 1000s of turtles are killed by plastic every year.

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Entanglement

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Impacts of Fishing Gear

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Ingestion

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April 2010-Puget Sound-California Grey Whale Stomach contents: pants and golf ball, more than 20 plastic bags, small towels, duct tape and surgical gloves

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Spread of invasive species

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Solutions•Reduce • The best thing we can do is use less plastic! If we don’t use

it, there’s no way it can end up in our oceans. •No excuse for single use • Take your own bag to the supermarket •Grow your own vegetables & fruit • Say no to straws •Use reusable cloth diapers instead of plastic one

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Reuse

• Try to use items more than once.

•Bottles drinking water

•Bottles eco bricks

•Bottles plant holders

•Plastic boxes (e.g. ice cream containers) as lunch boxes

•Be creative & use your imaginationWorld Oceans Day 2015 17

Recycle • rubbish new useful products.

• Paper, plastics, glass, metal and textiles can all be recycled.

•Others

• Put in the dustbin

• Compost

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The massive ocean cleaning system is planned to be launched in 2016.

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SAVEOCEANS

&MARINE

LIFE

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•Reference:WWW.oceanambassadors.orgClean Water Action California

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