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Larger plastics (called "macroplastics") such as plastic shopping bags can clog the digestive tracts of larger animals when consumed by them [13] and can cause starvation through restricting the movement of food, or by filling the stomach and tricking the animal into thinking it is full. Microplastics on the other hand harm smaller marine life.
Plastic pollution affects at least 700 marine species, including sea turtles, seals, seabirds, fish, whales, and dolphins. [51] Cetaceans have been sighted within the patch, which poses entanglement and ingestion risks to animals using the Great Pacific Garbage Patch as a migration corridor or core habitat. [52]
While marine pollution can be obvious, as with the marine debris shown above, it is often the pollutants that cannot be seen that cause most harm.. Marine pollution occurs when substances used or spread by humans, such as industrial, agricultural and residential waste, particles, noise, excess carbon dioxide or invasive organisms enter the ocean and cause harmful effects there.
The North Atlantic garbage patch is a garbage patch of man-made marine debris found floating within the North Atlantic Gyre, originally documented in 1972. [1] A 22-year research study conducted by the Sea Education Association estimates the patch to be hundreds of kilometers across, with a density of more than 200,000 pieces of debris per ...
The Indian Ocean Garbage Patch on a continuous ocean map centered near the south pole. The Indian Ocean garbage patch, discovered in 2010, is a marine garbage patch, a gyre of marine litter, suspended in the upper water column of the central Indian Ocean, specifically the Indian Ocean Gyre, one of the five major oceanic gyres.
Degraded plastic waste can directly affect humans through direct consumption (i.e. in tap water), indirect consumption (by eating plants and animals), and disruption of various hormonal mechanisms. [12] As of 2019, 368 million tonnes of plastic is produced each year; 51% in Asia, where China is the world's largest producer. [13]
To dispose of animal waste and other pollutants, animal production farms often spray manure (often contaminated with potentially toxic bacteria) onto empty fields, called "spray-fields", via sprinkler systems. The toxins within these spray-fields oftentimes run into creeks, ponds, lakes, and other bodies of water, contaminating bodies of water.
Garbage, trash (American English), rubbish (British English), or refuse is waste material that is discarded by humans, usually due to a perceived lack of utility. The term generally does not encompass bodily waste products, purely liquid or gaseous wastes, or toxic waste products. Garbage is commonly sorted and classified into kinds of material ...