Sea pollution

Not long ago, many people didn’t think much about what happened after garbage was dumped into the sea. They didn’t think it would cause problems. Now we know that they were very wrong. The sea is full of waste, which is harmful and poisonous for the animals and plants living there. The sea is POLLUTED.

The main things that pollute the sea are - PLASTICS, OIL SPILLS, CHEMICALS and SEWAGE. In the 1960s, plastic materials became available to everyone. People thought it was great - a material that is long-lasting and strong, but cheap enough to use once and then throw away. What could be bad about it? Now we know that the bad thing about plastic is that it’s so long-lasting it never goes away.

And a lot of it ends up in the sea. Once in the sea, sunlight and waves break the plastic into smaller and smaller pieces - MICROPLASTICS. Seabirds and fish eat plastics and microplastics because it looks a lot like food to them. But they can’t digest it - instead, it gets stuck in their stomachs. This results in fish and seabirds not feeling hungry.

They stop eating real food and die of starvation. Plastic pollution is a big problem especially because of microplastics. Even if we picked all the plastics out of the sea, we don’t know yet how to get rid of all the microplastics. Oil is another big threat for life in and above the sea. People use oil all around the world, but it’s rare and only found in a few places.

This is why it’s often transported from one place to another in large ships or oil tankers. If an oil tanker gets damaged during the journey, the oil will spill into the sea. Oil is incredibly toxic and extremely harmful for the animals living in the sea but also for the seabirds. After an oil spill, a lot of the seabirds will be covered in oil, and they will eat it when they clean their feathers. Because of that, they will die in a couple of days.

There are other chemicals that pollute the sea as well. A lot of major rivers end in the sea. They carry chemical waste and sewage from farms, factories and cities. This chemical waste then ends up in the sea and harms the animals and plants that live there. But one group of microorganisms - cyanobacteria, does in fact really like the conditions created by the waste.

They start growing and reproducing. No animal eats these microorganisms, so when they die, bacteria in the sea will start decomposing them. The decomposition process uses up so much oxygen that there’s not enough left for other animals so many of them die. There is also a lot less sunlight entering the sea because of the thick surface layer of decomposing microorganisms. This is harmful to sea plants.

Sea pollution is really harmful and a lot of organisms die because of it. We have to protect the beautiful world underwater, and the animals that rely on it.