Plastic, the worst kind of thrash, doesn't affect only people, as the latest research indicated, but it also has an impact on oceans and on their ecosystems, to a greater extent than one would imagine. In fact, large portions of the oceans are becoming synthetic, from all the slowly decomposing plastic items that fill them. Birds and jellyfish mistake them for food and ingest them, which eventually leads to their death. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, for instance, located between Hawaii and California, is supposed to be the size of the Texas state.

 

The garbage reaches the ocean in many ways, mainly from inland (by the regular process of toilette flushing, for example), but also, to an extent of 20%, by being dumped overboard from ships. Obviously, 8 million tons per day is quite a hefty amount. Marine life is also greatly affected by global warming effects, ocean noise, acidification and many other factors, but garbage pollution comes as the final blow. There is little effort made both in the direction of cleaning and in that of preventing further thrash dumping in the oceans.

 

However, as always, nature is fighting back. It is known that plastic material is not biodegradable, although it decomposes (or, better yet, it photo-degrades) slowly under the influence of solar light. In a time period ranging from a couple of decades (plastic bags) to 500-600 years (plastic bottles), they decay into polymers that the organisms (called neuston) floating on the water surface ingest. The neuston is eaten by fish relying on it as a regular diet, while fish in turn is eaten by people who, of course, become sick.

 

Among other items that regularly make it into the oceans are paper (thankfully, it degrades fast), aluminum (with a 5-10-year degradation rate), cigarette stubs (10 years), but also glass bottles and batteries, which have a lifespan of thousands of years. But it's not the fault of the materials, after all. We created them and it is also us who disposed of them in such a gruesome manner, so it's only in our own power to do something about this while we still can.