Introduction

One flap of a butterfly’s wings can cause a tornado on the other side of the earth; a phrase which means, “something small and seemingly harmless can cause a catastrophic event.” In this case, the butterfly is not a butterfly, it is a plastic bottle. And the tornado isn’t a tornado, but the end of the ocean, and thus, the world.

Pollution’s problem

Some people think that ocean pollution doesn’t affect us much. But it does. A lot. Let’s say that an ocean gets polluted with plastic. Fish eat that plastic. Maybe somebody then catches a poisoned fish. They sell it to a restaurant. A person asks for the fish and eats it. Even though you may not think plastic would last that long, it takes the plastic bags you buy from grocery stores 10-20 years to decompose. For some harder plastics, it can take thousands of years. And even then, it’s not really gone, it’s just really small. The ocean also feeds the rivers, and underground water sources, into a river. According to Newsella’s “Texas’ Gulf Coast is being battered by ‘nurdle’ pollution", the toxic chemicals that come from the plastics can seep out and pollute the water. The plastic also breaks down into microscopic pieces of plastic. Now every animal that drinks from that river is poisoned. The water flows for miles to a farm. It gets used to water the crops. The crops suck the chemicals up through their roots. They get sprinkled with a snow of microscopic poison. This goes on and on. One bottle doesn’t seem like much, but to the animals, it is the start of a pandemic.

Greenish-blue and microkillers

The ocean is a greenish-blue. Everyone knows that. But ‘blue’ only scrapes the surface. Almost everything about the ocean that is important is deeper down. Newsella’s “Texas’ Gulf Coast is being battered by "nurdle" pollution" shows you there is so much more down there than fish, coral, octopuses, and seaweed. There is death. Street name: plastic. Plastic harms the ocean in many ways. It absorbs dangerous chemicals, which many animals mistake for food. And if the chemicals don’t kill them first, the trash clogs and cuts their intestines. If the plastic is hard and cuts the inside, it can cause internal bleeding. Water and food can't flow if it is softer and clog the intestine. But what exactly happens to plastic? Microplastics can come from many different things. From fraying shirts, (yes, shirts), to water thrashing against bigger plastics. Microplastics are often no bigger than a red blood cell!

Disposing of Death

It’s obvious how horrible and dangerous plastic pollution is, but there are many ways that people can help eradicate it. You can take either direct or indirect action. Because, believe it or not, both are equally important. Direct action helps quickly. It can be anything from not using plastic grocery bags to organizing a thousand-person campaign. But there is an in-between! You can pick up litter before it goes into the ocean. Make sure to recycle any and all plastic you can. Or even making sure you use plastic substitutes. But how can indirect action possibly be as important as direct action? Indirect action can be a poster or a speech. A website or an article. Indirect action teaches people, you can’t fix something you don’t know is broken. Indirect action may not fix much, but it does tell other people that there is something to fix. Not everyone can solely take indirect action, but somewhere in the chain, somebody will. Overall, solutions to problems like this are complicated. But every journey starts with one step. No matter the size.

Conclusion

It might seem impossible, but the impossible is just a filler word for what hasn’t yet been achieved. A single flap of a butterfly’s wings might be able to create a tornado, but a single fire can light 100 torches. Let future generations see the oceans as they should be. Greenish-blue. Life in every corner. Together, we can stop ocean pollution. All we need is one person to be the fire. Be that fire, others will follow. 

Works Cited

https://newsela.com/view/ck9nool0707150iqje9z2bup4/?levelId=ck7ecxabu113u14p746o5nqtv.

Microbeads on a red blood cell, SEM. Photograph. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, Nov 02 2020. quest.eb.com/images/132_3056045. Accessed 24 May 2024.