MAIN SOURCE

OF

PLASTIC POLLUTION

YouTube Videos: Plastic Bottles & Ocean Pollution and How plastic bags hurt marine life. 

The main source of plastic waste is single use plastics and disposable plastics. In this post I want to discuss two main types of single use disposable plastics which are polluting our oceans and killing marine life every day. Plastic bags and plastic water bottles.

Plastic Bags

It is estimated that discarded plastic bags kill many of the 100,000 marine animals that die each year from plastic waste. Either by becoming entangled in them or by ingestion, where they clog "their intestines" leading to a slow death by starvation.  

In her article on Plastic Bag Pollution 
Sharon Jacobsen relates that each 
year "around 500 billion plastic bags
are used worldwide" and of that
total "100 billion are consumed
in the United States alone", and
that plastic bags "are among the
top 12 items of debris most often
found along coastlines". To put
these figures into some perspective
that would mean that a family of four would use "332" plastic bags each year.
The following video will illustrate these points and and make suggestions
on what can be done to cut down on plastic bag use:

How plastic bags hurt Marine life

    

To find out more information on how plastic bags are polluting our marine systems visit the following site:
http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/plastickills.html
Reference: Jacobsen, Sharon. Plastic Bag Pollution at: 

www.googobits.com/articles/1604-plastic-bag-pollution.html

Plastic Water Bottles

Image provided by village coach fitness 

It is estimated that  

American's purchase

"34.6 billion single-

serving plastic water

bottles each year".

Hundreds of million

of these, almost eight

out of ten, end up 

either as litter or in
our oceans, streams,
and waterways. "That's
877 bottles wasted
every second", which
can have a devastating affect on our oceans and marine life as the following video demonstrates.

Plastic Bottles & Ocean Pollution 

It is worth noting however, when choosing a reusable plastic water bottle it is imperative that you educated yourself on which type of plastic water bottle you should be purchasing. For plastics water bottles are not only dangerous to the oceans but to human health as well.  A topic that I will address in a later post.

Reference: http://www.container-recycling.org/facts/plastic/bottledwater.htm