Mai
English 961A
March 13 2015
The Lack of Awareness of Overconsumption of Los Angeles Residents Last year the Advance Science, Serving Society reported that 4.8 to 12.7 millions metric tons of trash enter the ocean. America, the country has the well-developed infrastructure to handle the waste, contributed 40,000 to 110,000 metric tons per year. The improved life quality and the increase resource consumption as the society gets more modern have posed the negative impact on the environment. Moreover, the waste management is far beyond the handling of the government and the agencies because there are never enough landfills for 25 percents of world trash in America (Humes). In the article “Can Psychology Help Save The World? A Model For Conservation Psychology,” Susan Clayton, a professor of psychology at the College of Wooster, and Amara Brook, a professor of Santa Clara University, use psychology to help explaining the human behavior which causes environmental problem. Although the government spends a lot of money on waste management, the lack of awareness of Los Angeles residents causes high volumes of waste, which leads to ocean pollution and health problem. The Los Angeles government spends a lot of money for trash management and controlling the amount of trash. California government spends millions a year to clean trash from their beaches and alley ways. In the article “L.A. lawmakers press for cleanup of city's trash-strewn alleys” by Emily Alpert Reyes, she states, “Now officials are poised to start spending more, with Mayor Eric Garcetti proposing $5 million to straighten up alleys, streets and vacant lots across the city”. The government is willing to help citizens to collect trash, so it does not end up into the ocean or somewhere else. Even though the government contributes so much to society, people are still unawared of the pollution which leads them to over consume. In the past the Los Angele government spent so much money to clean up trash from the street, yet still the government continues to do the same but no changes are shown within society. Similarly, Los Angles has tried many different ways to reduce the amount of trash. Another example of how the government spend numerous amounts of money on society to clean up their mess, which can be shown through Emily Alpert Reyes’s article. She states, “After alley cleaning lost its regular funding, junk began to pile higher on curbs, in vacant lots and in the alleys that cut behind Los Angeles homes and businesses, according to city and community leaders” (Reyes). This quote proves the logic that, even though the Los Angles government spends money within society, it does not make any difference because people are unaware of the amount of trash that they create. The government’s aid does not make any difference because citizens are not willing to let go of their old habits. Society should have had the ability to learn from their mistakes, but in return they continue to make the same mistake, which causes them and the environment harm and costs the government a lot of money. Although the government plays a part in keeping society clean, citizens intentionally throw trash around, which ends up into the rivers and oceans. In Journal Scholastic, the article “Scales Of Spatial Heterogeneity Of Plastic Marine Debris In The Northeast Pacific Ocean” was published in 2013, Miriam Goldstein mentions: “ What happen to the stuff we throw out- the plastic bag, cup and water bottle that we casually toss into the garbage? All the refuse to go some where. To often, it ends up in our oceans.” This quote proves Mayor Eric Garcetti’s perspective of how society is the major contributor to the ocean pollution. There are many reasons that cause trash to appear in the ocean, one of those reasons is that people have the mentality to throw trash into the street rather than a trash can. In an indirect ways, people throw trash on the river where the current will force them to end up in the oceans. In spending time, effort and money, the government had tried to prevent ocean pollution, but the over consumption of society causes an even more greater impact on the environment. Due to human behavior and over consumption, our ocean has become a plastic waste dump. Los Angles researchers proved the fact that people were more likely to live near the river because they believed that the water is a natural solution for their garbage. In the book “Plastic Ocean : How A Sea Captain's Chance Discovery Launched A Determined Quest To Save The Oceans,” Charles Moore states “natural all purpose cleaning agent has been around us” (61). People think that ocean can clean up trash. By looking at the trash from the ocean, Moore knows more about the identity of the trash which still contains the name of the food, drink or contact (qtd. in Ebbesmeyer 220). This also relates to Los Angles because they are an example of how people see the ocean as a cleaning agent, which is reasonable because they live near the ocean. In the middle of the ocean where doesn't have any boarder, Moore saw the nets, buoys, bottle caps which are the evidence of a heedless and overconsumption of American industry (qtd. in Ebbesmeyer 220). The trash that is thrown into the ocean will effect both humanity and the environment. Additionally, by Moore’s theory of water being a cleaning agent, people are more reluctant to throw their waste into the water intentionally because of their past experiences. An example of how societies past experience causes them to throw trash intentionally can be seen through Clayton and Brook’s article "Can Psychology Help Save The World? A Model For Conservation Psychology.” The authors state, “people’s interpretation of their context is strongly influence by their past experience and resulting stored knowledge” (91). Los Angeles residents have the thought through past experiences that trash will flow away from society, so they use water as an element to clean up their mess. This is the reason why people are careless when they throw trash away without thinking about where trash will end up. The thing that they have learned in the past will lead them to continue their action. In the end of human action, the trash got into the ocean current, where it will cause a lot of effect. No matter where the trash comes from, it will end up in the center of North Pacific Gyre. Edward Humes, the author of the book Garbology, knew that garbage's journey around the Earth didn't stop on land, it would have the long journey to get into the middle of ocean. The estimation that the amount of plastic that goes to the middle of ocean each year has the weight of 40 aircraft carrier (Humes). An example of this can be seen through Xavier article, “Plastic dump on the Pacific,” he states, “ the plastic we discard are making a mess of the ocean, writes has been described as the world’s largest rubbish dump, or the Pacific plastic soup.” The water never stops flowing, and the ocean current creates a gyre with a slow speed which is similar to a whirlpool. This allows the trash to move into the middle of the ocean instead of staying within the coast, so people cannot able to see trash in the coastal. In the middle of the gyre, the trash will change their chemical characteristic and effect to the ocean pollution and the health problem. The trash in the ocean causes a serious pollution. In 1997, Moore, a scientific researcher and sea captain who is the first to discover the loading plastic debris in the middle of the North Pacific Grey, discovered for the first time that ocean contains a lot of trash, and sstates, “I never found a clear spot. No matter what time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere: bottle, bottle cap, wrapper, fragment.” People wonder why the trash flows above the water rather than sinks down to the bottom of the ocean. Chuck Mitchell, who is an environmental scientist in Marina Biological Consultant, Inc, proved that trash will lose its mass and weight for the specific temperature while it won’t loss it chemical ability (qtd. in Moore 112). In addition, the surrounding such as wind, heat, sunlight will emit its bad chemical characteristic (qtd. in Moore 112). In the book “Four Fish : The Future Of The Last Wild Food,” Paul Greenberg mentions about one of the dangerous chemical is polyethylene terephthalate (PET) which is used to make plastic bottle, will change into the simple form because of the light. Fragments which is one of the simple form of PET, absorb the toxins that will poisonous the water ways and contaminate the soil (Humes 114). Furthermore, Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) which is the breakdown form of electrical insulator and computer chip, has more deathly chemical than PET (Greenberg). An Environment Health Scientist, David Carpenter discovered PCBs will directly exposed to any type of living thing after it breaks down into its simple form and very stable in the large range of temperature and pressure (Greenberg, 51). Therefore, when the ocean is polluted, marina life and human heath face many problem. The health of fish is faced with danger because of the assimilated food. In the same article “Plastics dump on Pacific,” Xavier states “ The plastic slowly photodegrades, becoming brittle and disintegrating into smaller and smaller pieces that enter the food chain and end up in the stomachs of birds and animals.” There are a lot of researches show that the amount of plastic doesn't fit with the number they have calculated and expected; therefore, plastic is missing somewhere in the ocean. The organism zooplankton consumes a large amount of small debris. Moreover, zooplankton is the main food for lanternfish the nutrition source that support for all marine living things (Humes). However, lanternfish contains a large amount of debris which is not good for marine animals’ health. In the research 2008, a group of students, who study about marine population, found around thirty-five percentages of lanternfish with plastic in there stomachs and on lanternfish had 83 small chunks in the gut of one lanternfish (Moore, 119). Not only fish, birds sometimes cannot define which one is their food between plastic and fish. Ackenerman Jennifer, who is a scientist writer, provides an example of two birds: Antarctic prions and layman albatross which digest a large amount of marine debris (Moore). There are a lot of evidences found about how much these bird ingested in their life. In 2002, Algalita Marine Research Foundation provided a huge amount of pictures which show how human impact to ocean birds. The picture of layman albatross which is dead at the coastal of the small island in Pacific Ocean, contain mostly bottle cap in their stomach (qtd. inMoore). Although human trash enters directly or indirectly to the ocean, the marine debris will cause to the death of fish and bird, which will affect to the ocean nutrition. Plastic that people dump into ocean get consumed by fish and in return the fish get consumed by human. In the book Garbology, two Scripps scientists point out that, “ The fish responsible for maintaining a significant part of global food supply were eating potentially toxic plastic at an alarming rate” (Humes). Although lanternfish is not human food, it is the main food of large fish which is consumed by human body. The chemical that the lanternfish ate, will transfer indirectly to human. Carpenter proves that human need 10 years to remove half of a quantity of PBCs contamination; however, people still eat seafood; therefore, the amount of PBCs in human body never decreases (qtd. in Greenberg). There is a big research about how PCBs affects to human through eating salmon (Greenberg). The research points out that if people ate their portion of salmon per week they will likely have cancer for 23 per 100,000 people and will likely to deaf from coronary heart disease for 7125 per 100,000 people (Greenberg). Moreover, a person who eat food that contain PBCs in his or her teenage time, will carry around some of chemical until he or she die. Therefore, human accidentally killed themselves by throwing a lot of trash. The Los Angeles government spent a lot of money for trash management and controlling the amount of trash. However, the government aid does not make any difference because citizens still keep creating a lot of trash. Based on human action, the trash got into the ocean current where it will causes a serious ocean pollution. The health of fishes are faced with danger. Moreover, the trash that people dump into ocean get consumed human through the food chain circle. In order to prevent the problem get , Los Angeles residences should aware of the amount of trash that they created. Moreover, people should minimize the trash created to help environment.

Work Cited
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Ebbesmeyer, Curtis C., and Eric Scigliano. Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science. New York, NY: Smithsonian, 2009. Print.
Goldstein, Miriam C., Andrew J. Titmus, and Michael Ford. "Scales Of Spatial Heterogeneity Of Plastic Marine Debris In The Northeast Pacific Ocean." Plos ONE 8.11 (2013): 1-11. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Feb. 2015.
Greenberg, Paul. Four Fish : The Future Of The Last Wild Food. n.p.: Penguin Press, 2010. Book Index with Reviews. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.
Humes, Edward. Garbology : Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash. n.p.: Avery, 2012. Book Index with Reviews. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.
Moore, Charles, and Cassandra Phillips. Plastic Ocean : How A Sea Captain's Chance Discovery Launched A Determined Quest To Save The Oceans. n.p.: Avery, 2011. Book Index with Reviews. Web. 4 Mar. 2015.
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