...The current event I chose to write about is ocean pollution. Ocean pollution is a huge issue. Some people wonder why do people throw trash in the ocean? Well, people throw trash in the ocean because they are too lazy to get up and throw it away in a trash can or just can’t find one, so instead, they toss it in the ocean. They need to be aware of what it's doing to hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales, and other marine mammals, and more than 1 million seabirds. These creatures die each year from ocean pollution. You might not pollute in the ocean, but you might do it somewhere not realizing where it’ll go. Small pieces of trash that people throw on the street are usually washed into storm drains during rainstorms. The storm drains carry...
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...amount of trash approximately fourteen times bigger than whole Slovakia? No? Then it is about time to make you familiar with Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This large floating landfill is the biggest one in the world. According to Charles Moore, discoverer of Great Pacific Garbage Patch (in 1977), "The ocean is downhill from everything" (as cited in Blomberg, 2011). Considering the fact that high percentage of all trash is produced on the land, it is very surprising then the biggest junk yard is actually in the water and not on the land. Even though, recently many people and companies started to care more about amount of trash in oceans, there is a lack of information about Great Pacific Garbage Patch and related issues among large number of population. First of all, Great Pacific Garbage Patch consists of two parts, Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch as mentioned in article written by Jacob Silverman (n.d.). Some sources refer to Eastern one as Great Pacific Garbage Patch and do not talk about the other one (Boudreau et al., n.d.), even though they do not deny the existence of Western Pacific Garbage Patch it can cause some misunderstanding with names. In this essay, there will be used distinction of Eastern and Western Pacific Garbage Patch as well as collective name Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Eastern one is situated between Hawaii and California, the Western flows between Hawaii and Japan. Silverman continues that both patches contain trash from all over...
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...catch their paychecks. In fact the fishing industry pays a high price for these losses from the time they have to replace their nets to the pulling of old nets and trash out of their new nets on a regular basis. When questioned about the effects of marine debris on their fishing activities, Shetland fishermen responded that 92% had recurring problems with accumulated debris in nets, 69% had had their catch contaminated by debris and 92% had snagged their nets on debris on the seabed. Many also experienced fouled propellers and blocked intake pipes. On average, 1-2 hours per week were spent clearing debris from nets. Debris could cause a restricted catch and many boats avoided particular fishing areas altogether due to the high concentrations of debris. It has gotten to the point for many fishers that they can no longer fish certain areas known to be well stocked with money fish due to the time consuming issues with trash and fishing debris in those specific waters due to left behind gear. Ultimately their carelessness or specifically their loss of equipment into their own favorite fishing area and their not having the foresight to recognize that they need a way to retrieve their gear quickly and efficiently at that time causes them to eventually lose that area permanently due to loss of time extracting their own trash from their replacement gear. If the fishing industry would clean up...
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...Bio 324 12/01/12 Plastics in the ocean Imagine the massive breadth and spread of our great state of Texas. Now imagine every milli-inch of that piled high with trash: bottle caps, cigarettes, cigarette lighters, tampon applicators, plastic nets, discarded flip flops, Frisbees, soda bottles, milk jugs, diapers, six-pack rings, busted tennis rackets, empty pens, shampoo bottles, empty squeeze bottles of jam, you name it. Now take that image, double it, and plunk into the water. That's what is floating around the eastern corner of a 10-million-square-mile oval known as the North Pacific subtropical gyre. Nicknamed the "Eastern Garbage Patch," this buoyant stew of toxic pollution-most of which is plastic-is only one of five such garbage heaps caught in the swirling high-pressure currents characteristic of gyres. The others reside in the South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean. And each year, perhaps unwittingly, each one of us adds to plastic to the heap. Plastic makes it into our oceans in a variety of ways. About twenty percent of it comes from goods lost from boats: i.e. accidental loss of fishing tackle and other recreational gear, massive shipping containers carrying millions of plastic items washed overboard during severe storms; litter from pleasure boats, or illegal dumping of unwanted goods. Beachgoer’s debris is also a contributor. The other eighty percent is swept in from land. Just as Nonpoint Source Pollution from fertilizers...
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...Recycling In The United States. The average American can produce around 1600 pounds of trash each year. If you break that down, that’s about 29 pounds of trash in a week and about 4.4 pounds in a single day. What person wants to live somewhere they are surrounded by trash? If everyone in the United States did their part in recycling then this would not be as serious. Once society makes a stand and work together to solve this, it can be solved sooner rather than later. Sea creatures, wildlife and humans have all been affected by people that do no recycle. There should be a law in the United States that makes recycling mandatory in every state. By people not recycling has made a drastic change in the climate. Trees have been cut down and new resources are in a huge demand because of people not recycling. After the trees are cut down, fuel is needed to transport the trees and to make new paper. When the fuel is being used it gets burned and being released as a greenhouse in the environment. Sometimes, papers do not reach landfills and the papers that do not reach the landfills should be processed. Even if it does reach the landfills, it should remain there until the earth absorbs and processes it. Even though paper disintegrates faster than Styrofoam and plastic, instead of consuming new paper, just recycle the old one paper. Human waste is the reason landfills are so overcrowded. The paper that does not get recycled gets tossed into a landfill. The chemical that are used for ink...
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...Mariah Burkhardt Sharon Janusz ENG 121: English Composition I 30 October 2014 The True Price for Plastic Did you know that plastic bags are one of the largest sources of litter in the world? According to research discussed on “How Stuff Works”, plastic bags can take anywhere from two hundred to a thousand years to break down. They also give off toxic chemicals when burned, so burning is a hazardous way to rid of the material. Because of this it is difficult to safely dispose of plastic. According to the same site, less than 1% of plastic bags used in the US are recycled due to recycling costs being much higher than the recovered plastic is worth. States are attempting to find new strategies to reduce the number of plastic carry-out bags from grocery stores and other retail outlets to help with the issues arising. They believe regulating the use of bags can lower harmful impacts to oceans, rivers, lakes and the wildlife that inhabits them. Reducing bag use can also relieve pressure on landfills and waste management. One of the methods being experimented with is charging for the plastic bags given out at grocery stores. This is definitely something stores should try to help out both economically and environmentally. Economically, charging for plastic could help the world in a few ways. It would profit the community, it would put more money into recycling as more people buy reusable bags, and it could cut costs on manufacturing these bags, making it possible to put money...
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...Ocean Resources Paper (Option 2) Chelsea Ellis SCI/275 March 1, 2014 Tami McConnell Ocean Resources Paper (Option 2) Our oceans are at a greater risk than ever for acidification, dying coral reefs, over fishing, mercury pollution, litter, and trash you can actual see floating from space, and so much more. The oceans are our biggest resource for living, for life on Earth… they supply us with our air in every breath we take. Oceans gives us 50% to 70% of our air!! They need our help if we want to continue the joys of salt life and watching our fellow salt-water friends swim about happily. * Describe the problem and how it came about I would like to discuss acidification and the harms of it. I didn’t know that much about this problem before going into all the research, I knew our oceans we in dire need of help, but I had no idea how bad the acidification has gotten. Ocean acidification is when carbon dioxide (CO2) is absorbed by seawater and those chemical reactions that occur reduce the seawater pH, carbonate ion concentration, and saturation states of biologically important calcium carbonate minerals (NOAA, 2014). Our carbon footprint is killing not only the oceans animals, but we are killing ourselves here. Acidification is especially harmful to the little plankton, oysters, and shellfish. It’s harmful to the coral and the star fish that attach themselves to the coral, the fish that swim in the reefs, sea otters, and even the whales until eventually it finds...
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...Does Polluted Water Hurts the Environment? Embry Riddle Aeronautical University Abstract Water pollution is the worst problem that the United States and other nations are facing today. Although, many people have known this issue, they are still contributing to it. People need to become more responsive on this issue by complying on several ways to prevent water pollution. The chemical industry and factory farms need to follow the guidelines of operating their business, by using proper disposal methods for hazardous materials and waste materials. Chemical industry and factory farms need to follow the guidelines behind water pollution. To begin with, factory farms should be regulated accordingly. They must obtain permits, monitor water quality and pay for cleaning up and disposing of their waste. Also, factory farms must strengthen their new technology standards. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must consider recent technological advances that significantly reduce pathogens. In addition, residents and local government should get involved and must have a say in whether to allow factory farms in their communities. The public also has the right to review and comment on the contents of pollution reduction plans and to enforce the terms, when a factory farm is in violation. The politically powerful chemically industry should enforce federal laws that permits underground waste disposal. A better and potentially...
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...| * The effects of plastic bags on the environment are really quite devastating. While there are many objections to the banning of plastic bags based solely on their convenience, the damage to the environment needs to be controlled. * There is no way to strictly limit the effects of plastic bags on the environment because there is no disposal method that will really help eliminate the problem. While reusing them is the first step, most people either don't or can't based on store policies. They are not durable enough to stand up to numerous trips to the store so often the best that citizens can do is reuse them when following pooper scooper laws. * The biggest problem with this is that once they have been soiled the end up in the trash, which then ends up in the landfill or burned. Either solution is very poor for the environment. Burning emits toxic gases that harm the atmosphere and increase the level of VOCs in the air while landfills hold them indefinitely as part of the plastic waste problem throughout the globe. * Plastic Bag Litter * Even when citizens try to manage their plastic bag disposal wind plays a role in carrying them away as litter. This litter is not biodegradable and thus where it lands it tends to stay for long period of time. A bag that is eventually ripped to shreds from high winds or other factors doesn't disappear but instead is spread in smaller amounts throughout the area. This can cause more problems as these smaller pieces are carried away...
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...the next generations will also have those resources available. That is not the case however, not only have we almost depleted the supplies of coal, oil, and natural gas, but we processed them negligently, so our waters, atmosphere, and land are polluted as a result of it. Earth has no rights, unlike us, humans, that are protected by the constitution of the country we reside in. How will Earth defend itself from the species that has the most judgment on the planet and it still ignores the signs that the planet is sending us: ozone layer is thinning, global warming, ice caps are melting, fish dying in the rivers and oceans due to contamination, extinction rates skyrocketing due to deforestation and urbanization. The impact of hundreds of species being extinct and hundreds other considered endangered is also mentioned in Reading Literature and Writing Argument “research shows that preserving species of plants and animals is intrinsically related to the preservation of our own viability as a species” (James and Merickel 279). The planet will not fight back, we are to make a change in our ways and fix the wrong we have done. Deforestation harms the planet, because trees absorb carbon dioxide and other dangerous gases and emit Oxygen. Cutting more trees, for development or urban...
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...Natural Resources and Energy Paper SCI/256 July 09, 2013 . Marine Ecosystem Out of all of the large and natural resources available for generating electricity in the United States, it is the ocean. Ocean energy may be the last investigated for its potential. The ocean is so vast and deep, until recently, it was assumed that no matter how many chemicals or how much trash humans dumped into the ocean, the effects would be negligible. Dumping into oceans have even got the catchphrase: “The solution to pollution is dilution” (National Geographic, 2013) Impacts Associated With Agriculture Pollutants from agriculture have affected the marine’s ecosystem in ways that may not be reversible, and may also be slowly harming rivers, streams, and coastal waters. Pesticides and fertilizer are two major components that have disturbed the marine’s ecosystem; both contain harmful chemicals that can be hazardous to living organisms in the water. Fertilizer and pesticide run-off from large farms may have initiated bursts of marine algae which may disrupt the ocean’s ecosystem by causing massive blooms in marine waters (Schwartz, 2005). Winds cause nitrogen and other nutrients from the seafloor to surface, which promote the growth of algae called phytoplankton. Phytoplankton is a main source of food for many living organisms in the marine waters. Agricultural pollutants may have triggered phytoplankton to produce harmful blooms in tides, which are giving-off poisonous toxins to marine life...
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...area existed, so people are closer to the landfill than ever before. The Orange County solid waste division is said to be working on a plan to get rid of the odor, but nothing has been announced, as it relates to getting rid of the smell. For residents near the Rolling Hills landfill, there are health concerns surrounding air quality. Hydrogen sulfide as of last December, reached a level where it is a public health hazard. For the people that live in the nearby community, breathing in the highest levels of H2S for 30 minutes is high enough that it could cause headaches, and irritation of the nose or throat. Because the complaints local government came in and levied fines against the landfill, and has stopped them from bringing in more trash until there are improvements made to the facility (Florida County responds to complaints about landfill odor) (Wedgewood Community Update) (County officials close Rolling Hills landfill). 2. The impact of plastic bags on the environment is pretty severe....
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...used; written and spoken. It has caused a insoluble rift between the unwavering loyalists of standard English and the patriots petitioning for evolving language whom both have valid arguments yet cannot see eye to eye. The predominant concern emanates from the parents facing new dilemmas: should they give their child a mobile phone? At what age? What effects could this have on their development, academic or otherwise? When texting became available to the masses there were bound to be those who had their doubts, and there still are. John Sutherland of University College London described emerging ‘text-speak’ in a 2002 paper as ‘bleak, bald, sad shorthand’ and accused it of ‘[masking] dyslexia, poor spelling and mental laziness.’ He deduced that ‘texting is penmanship for the illiterate’, however a multitude of surveys and numerous years of research show that texting can be harnessed to advance the literary proficiency of children. In order to abbreviate, use acronyms, elision and initialisms, children need a solid grammatical foundation on which to build upon. They must have the ability to differentiate the necessary sounds in a word in order to discontinue use of the unimportant or substitute them for another sound. A commonly used abbreviation is ‘cos’ in the place of ‘because’ as when spoken aloud, ‘-os’ sounds identical to ‘-ause’ The curbing of words in this manner isn’t a modern invention. Evidence has been discovered of Anglo-Saxon scribes abbreviating...
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...Index SR. NO. | TOPICS | 1 | Acknowledgement | 2 | Introduction OF Water Pollution | 3 | Types of Water Pollution | 4 | Water Pollution Effects | 5 | Ganga River pollution in India | 6 | Extent of problem in West Bengal | 7 | CONSEQUENCES IN KOLKATA AS A RESULT OF WATER POLLUTION | 8 | Water Pollution Solutions | 9 | Water Pollution Preventions | 10 | “Ganga Action Plan” (GAP) | 11 | Conclusion | Introduction Water Pollution India is a land with many beautiful rivers and countryside. In India many of the rivers are considered to be holy, but water pollution in India has caused many of the rivers to be too polluted for use. Water pollution is a very serious problem in India which is the second most populous nation in the world. It is estimated that over 70% of all of India’s surface water is polluted in some way and many of the groundwater reserves have also been contaminated as a result of biological and industrial pollutants. As more and mre water becomes polluted the water pollution in India gets more and more severe. Many rivers have been deemed to be unsafe for human consumption which leads to water scarcity. Water pollution in India also makes irrigating crops difficult. If the water supply is too polluted to drink it should not be used for watering crops. With limited sources of water and pollution increasing every day India is facing a serious water crisis. Water pollution is becoming a huge problem which is faced by all of the human...
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...Title: On top of the environment Author(s): Aon Hewitt Source: Maclean's. 125.17 (May 7, 2012): p44. Document Type: Article Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2012 Rogers Publishing Ltd. http://www2.macleans.ca/ Full Text: [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE GREEN 30 is based on how employees perceive their employer's environmental efforts. We asked each organization that made the 2012 list, compiled by Aon Hewitt, to highlight some of the key programs and practices that earned them high marks. Here are their contributions: Accor/Novotel Canada Hotel management, Toronto * A detailed tracking system minimizes electricity, water, gas and sewer use. * A comprehensive recycling program has cut back the use of newspaper, glass, aluminum, plastics, cardboard and kitchen grease. BC Biometrical Laboratories Ltd. Medical laboratory, Surrey, B.C. * Works with recycling providers to find solutions for high-volume items--like small caps from needles, which once weren't considered recyclable. * Telecommuting is encouraged; more than 15 per cent of administrative staff work from home. Brookfield LePage Johnson Controls Real estate management, Markham, Ont. * Brookfield's head office diverts 100 per cent of its waste from landfills. * Established 11 social responsibility committees and hosted a sustainability event to educate real estate industry professionals on reducing carbon footprints. Celestica Electronics manufacturing, Toronto * Hybrid and other eco-friendly vehicles...
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