How waste affects sea life

When it comes to water pollution we all agree that it is a bad thing for sea fauna, but have you ever wondered why it is? Wether you want to know how plastic actually is dangerous for animals or how radioactive waste is produced, here you can find a few informations.

Plastic waste

How is it produced?

Plastic waste comes from an insufficient control over the waste, it usually comes from either land, and is transported by the wind to the bigger seas, or from rivers, in this case it is usually left next to them and just follows the stream until it reches the sea and, in some cases, the oceans. If you want to go deeper on this topic, you can check either Garbage patch or Microlastics to find more informations.

How does it affect sea animals?

Now, how do plastics actually affect sea fauna? To answer this we have to first know what plastic is made up of. Usually carbon (C), Oxygen (O), Hydrogen (H) and Nitrogen (N) are the main atoms of plastic, which are not different from the materials of which the food we eat is made up of. The differnce is how the different atoms bond together, in this case we have stronger bonds than the ones we find in food, which make the plastic impossible to digest. What happens is that bigger fishes mistake plastic and microplastic for small fishes or plankton and eat them, since they connot be digested they get stuck in the stomach, which ends up being full of things it cannot get rid of and can’t take in anymore “real” food, so animals die of starvation, this already happened, according to researchers, to 114 different sea species, which are now at risk of extinction.

What can we do?

To be honest, there in not much we can do, I myself hate to admit it but plastic is a really useful material, the only thing we, as a population, can do is to avoid plastic materials as muche as possible, and remember to put the waste in the recycle bin. This is not much, but it’s the most we can do.

Radioactive waste

How is it produced?

Radioactive waste is mostly produced by nuclear power plants, but it is kept in specific non-inhabitated undergroun areas to make sure no one is affected by it. The only time this kind of waste is not controlled is whan an accident occurs and there is not enough time to react. In the Chernobyl disaster the waters of a nearby lake were polluted but we managed to make sure the wastes did not get to the bigger seas. In the Fukushima disaster we were not so lucky to block all of it, don’t get me wrong, we tried, but what we did was not enough and some of the waste made it to the sea, killing a lot of animals, since the expansion in the water is a lot easier than the one on land.

How does it affect sea animals?

To explain how radiation works on sea animals, we first need to now what the radiation does to any living being, including trees. The radiation does not cause damage on the spot, it attacks the DNA, damaging it, in some cases the immune system is capable of solving the problem and fixing the DNA, in most cases it is not sufficient and this can lead to many problems connected with cancer and tumors, which are not easy to get rid of, if it’s not easy for humans, with all the technology we have nowadays, you can already imagine what happens to the fishes who end up in this situation, same goes for plants and animals that live on land.

What can we do?

As I said before, we are making sure the wastes do not come in touch with cities and people, apart from this, there is nothing to do, if we don't count not using nuclear power plants at all, but this is unlikely since they produce a lot of energy and would be pretty difficult to exchange them with something else.

M. Azzano

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