The ocean is something beautiful. It covers most of the planet with water and it's home to lots of animals. However, it’s unfortunately been destroyed by pollution.

Did you know that most of our food sources rely on the ocean? Besides that, it can also create oxygen and medicine and is part of identity and culture. The ocean also calms and connects us, and it also supports the livelihoods of millions of people.

Pollution is something that harms the land, sea, and air environments. It also has negative effects on wildlife and human beings as well. All the pollution present in the ocean comes from human activities, especially from things such as throwing trash into water sources, fishing, and oil spills.  In extreme cases pollution can be spread from natural events such as hurricanes and tsunamis.

Debris is deposited into the ocean through littering, storms, wind, and inadequate waste management, with all of them ultimately reaching the ocean, including plastic.There are many items in the sea that can lead to pollution such as plastic bags and drink bottles, as well as cigarette butts and bottle caps, food wrappers, and fishing equipment. Plastic is particularly harmful as it takes a long time to dissolve.

Ocean mining also causes pollution because mining liquids like gold and copper can cause harmful fluids in the ocean, it also disrupts the ecosystem, disrupting all the stuff they mine cobalt, zinc, silver, gold and copper causing harmful liquids. (KIEL, 2024)

There are different reasons that trash gets into the ocean. Such as illegal waste dumping, poor water disposal practices, storm water discharge and extreme events like tsunami’s.  Also ghost gear, or fishing gear that has been abandoned, is very deadly to the animals. It has a terrible effect on 66% of mammals, 50% of sea birds and all types of sea turtles all over the world. So many fishermen learned how to recycle their trash so that their ocean would be good for them. They take the nets and in a properly cleaned soon the keep them together and then they recycle it and find it a new use

So you see, there is a lot of pollution in the ocean because of us. This is why we need to recycle our garbage, take our fishing gear out of the water, and take care of the animals that live there so that they can be safe underwater. Let's work together for a cleaner ocean.

Bibliography

(Ocean Pollution and Marine Debris, 2020) 

(Ocean Pollution: Causes, Effects, Prevention | TDS, 2024) 

(Ocean Pollution | WWF, n.d.)