We all love our oceans, walking along the beach watching the seals or whales and various sea birds. While we are enjoying the beauty and serenity of our oceans we do not think of the plastic pollution that humans are putting into the seas and the diverse affects that plastics are having on all species that live in and around the seas.

Plastics are 90% of all trash floating on our oceans with 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile of ocean. That is absolutely mind boggling; a person would never think that there is that much plastic garbage thrown in our oceans. Plastic does not biodegrade; instead, it photo-degrades with sunlight, breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces, but they never really vanish. Marine animals end up eating plastic pieces either deliberately or accidently either way it is a death sentence for these poor unsuspecting innocent creatures.

Ocean currents sweep plastic from countless areas and the collection of debris forms a huge mass landing in eddying vortexes called ocean gyres. The North Pacific Gyre off the coast of California is home to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This is the largest ocean garbage spot in the world. The floating mass of plastic is twice the size of Texas, with plastic pieces outnumbering sea life by a measure of 6 to 1. Regrettably these garbage spots are impossible to clean up. In fact even if they could be cleaned up the amount of plastic that people throw into our oceans would accumulate these masses over and over.
The only way to get rid of these horrible garbage spots is to stop the manufacturing of plastic! One could argue that people could recycle all plastics which many of us do but unfortunately more of do not. We need to stop making and using plastic grocery bags completely, go back to paper.  We need to go back to wax lined cardboard milk cartons and cottage cheese containers etc. And to develop something different for water bottles for those people who choose not to use a metal one, and limit the amount of plastic wrappings on manufactured items. While this may not stop the garbage spots entirely it would dramatically reduce the amount of plastic being tossed into our oceans. Other countries around the world must do the same we need to show pictures of the garbage masses to everyone we can. People need a visual so they can actually see the amount and size of plastic and other pollution that is killing our oceans.

We depend on oceans for our very existence without clean and healthy oceans humanity will not thrive in fact without clean and healthy oceans our world will die.

Plastic poses a substantial threat to the well-being of sea creatures, both big and small. Over 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds die each year from swallowing or becoming entwined in plastic. It takes 500-1000 years for plastic to degrade. Even if we stopped using plastics today, they will remain with us for many generations, threatening both human and ocean health. But we can take action against plastic garbage.

The typical American will throw away 185 pounds of plastic per year.8% of the world's oil is used for plastic creation. Biodegradable bags prevent the lethal effects of plastic on ocean environments. They break down naturally, and don't leave harmful chemicals behind.  Cloth bags would reduce plastic consumption too. Approximately 380 billion plastic bags are used in the United States every year. That's 1,200 bags per US resident, per year. That is ridiculous. We need to take personal responsibility to help solve this problem. The solution is so simple limit the amount of plastic that we use in bags, bottles, and toys to start with, and then demand manufactures to reduce the amount of packaging for their products.

                   We simply need to get out of being the plastic world.