Essay about Pollution
Pollution
"Ours, a water planet. The ocean covers 71 percent of the surface of the globe, and it constitutes
over 90 percent of all habitable space on Earth. It's total volume is around 300 million cubic miles
and its weight is approximately 1.3 million million million tons. No wonder that Arthur C. Clarke,
scientist and writer, once remarked that it was 'inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it
is ocean.* * (Mulvaney 28). Ocean pollution is growing out of control, and the clean up of our
world's oceans is critical.
Ocean pollution is now a big problem facing us in everyday life. For years we have been trying to
stop the dumping of trash, chemicals, and toxic waste into our oceans but the people who do it,
...show more content...
It Is also said, that at any given time, the ocean contains over 280,000 tons of tar balls. All kinds
of garbage, ranging from fishing nets to trash, from cargo ships to litter on the beaches, finds its
way into coastal waters and the ocean. Here, it traps, ensnares, and entangles marine wildlife such
as many different species of marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds. Plastic pellets have been
found on the surface of the Pacific at concentrations of 21,000 per square mile; a cleanup exercise on
the coast of Texas yielded 15,600 six–pack rings along 1.8 miles of coastline; and a National
Academy of Sciences review once estimated that over 14 billion pounds of garbage enters the ocean
from sea–based sources alone. In the 1980's, it was reckoned that 30,000 northern fur seals died each
year after becoming entangled in marine debris, principally lost or abandoned fishing gear. Heavy
metals––mercury and lead, for example––and organochlorine compounds such as PCBs and DDT,
have been associated with a wide variety of impacts on marine wildlife(Mulvaney 29–30). A serious
form of ocean pollution might be heading to the coast of New Jersey starting in October. The
conflict is that the New York Port Authority wants to dredge New York Harbor, which is full of
contaminates such as mercury and other toxic and harmful substances, off of Sandy Hook,
Get more content on HelpWriting.net