The earth is the home of mankind, and it is also an ocean world. On the vast surface of the earth, 71% of the area is ocean, while land accounts for only 29%. Water is the source of life. It is precisely because the earth has a large amount of water resources that early life was born 4 billion years ago, and humans evolved over a long period of time.
Although the ocean will bring some dangers to the survival of mankind, the cycle of the earth’s ecology and the survival of life cannot be separated from the ocean. The protection of the marine environment is to protect the ecology of the earth, but also to protect ourselves. If the ocean is completely polluted, then life on the earth may or may not survive, and humans may also lose the beautiful home of the earth.
Before mankind entered the industrial age, the marine environment was naturally renewed and kept very clean and beautiful. But since mankind entered the industrial age, everything has changed. Technology has made our quality of life higher and higher, and it has also allowed mankind to walk out of the earth to explore the universe.
While technology has brought us many benefits, it has also brought serious damage, that is, the ecological environment is being continuously polluted. A large amount of waste gas, waste water and other pollutants produced by industrial production are continuously released into the atmosphere, making the ecology of the entire planet continue to deteriorate. The large amount of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions brought by industrial and technological products have also caused the earth’s temperature to continue to rise, which has brought various natural disasters.
The ocean is the most important regulating buffer valve for the earth’s ecology. However, with the continuous advancement of human technology, the ocean is hardly immune, and it is also gradually being polluted by various human creations. The most serious pollution is that we can see everywhere in our daily lives. Plastic.
I believe everyone is familiar with plastics, and we basically deal with it every day in our daily lives. The advent of plastics has indeed greatly facilitated people’s lives and brought many benefits to human civilization. But plastic is a macromolecular fossil synthesized by humans through chemical reactions.
This kind of high molecular compound is difficult to be decomposed naturally in nature, and it will take at least 100 years to rely on nature to complete the degradation. This time is very serious for the ecological deterioration of the earth, so once we discard plastic into nature, it will exist in the form of garbage for a long time and continue to pollute the environment.
Some people may say that since we know that plastics are difficult to degrade naturally in nature, we should recycle them for centralized processing, so that we can avoid environmental pollution? The ideal is very beautiful, but it is very difficult to realize, the recycling of plastics is very difficult.
According to statistics, the current global annual output of plastics is as high as 300 million tons, of which more than half are disposable. However, only a handful of them can be recycled and reused, and most of them have to be discarded in nature. The accumulation of so many plastics has become the white pollution in everyone’s mouth. Some people may have said that humans use a lot of plastic every day, but why do we not see much on land? Where are they?
These plastics have not disappeared. The reason why we don’t see much on land is that they are all recycled, but a large number of them have entered the ocean. Yes, a large part of the plastic discarded by humans has entered the ocean, polluting the marine environment.
According to statistics from scientists, humans have produced approximately 9 billion tons of plastic from the 1950s to the present, of which 130 million tons have entered the ocean. And with the development of mankind, the demand for plastics is also greatly increasing, and the amount of plastic entering the oceans is also increasing substantially
I believe that many friends know that there is a “junk continent” in the ocean. This “junk continent” is formed by at least 3 million tons of plastic waste. The current area has reached 1.6 million square kilometers, and it is still growing rapidly. If only the shallower parts of the sea are contaminated by plastic, then scientists are not too worried, and the plastic garbage on the sea level is easier to clean up.
However, scientists discovered in subsequent research and exploration that plastic waste is no longer limited to the sea level, where the ocean is relatively shallow, but has begun to develop deeper into deeper areas. The earth is an ocean world, with the deepest point reaching 11,000 meters, which is the Mariana Trench.
The Mariana Trench is called the abyss of the earth by scientists. The deepest point is 11,000 meters. The water pressure here reaches 1,100 atmospheres, making it hard to reach by humans. Of course, with the continuous advancement of human technology and relying on powerful submersibles, there are still very few people who have come to this abyss.
At an extreme depth of 11,000 meters, we saw a few lives, once again allowing mankind to witness the miracle of life. It has to be said that on a living planet like the Earth, you can see the shadow of life wherever you go. This discovery is undoubtedly very happy for scientists. However, what was discovered later made scientists not happy at all, instead they were full of endless worries.
So what did scientists find in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench? It is not something mysterious, but plastic that can be seen everywhere in humans. That’s right, human plastic waste not only pollutes the land and the surface of the ocean, but now even the deepest seabed has their presence.
Since plastics can be found on the seabed of 11,000 meters, it means that from the surface of the ocean to the deepest part of the sea, they have begun to be contaminated by plastics. This is not good news. We must know that human exploration of the deep sea is still very rare, and we can only rely on diving equipment to go deep into it.
It is far from possible to clean up the plastic garbage in the deep ocean. The ocean is deeply polluted by plastic garbage, which is very bad news for mankind. Some people may not understand: There are plastic figures everywhere in the ocean. What impact will it have on humans? I believe that many friends like to eat seafood very much, and it is still wild seafood directly from the ocean.
All kinds of fish in the ocean enter the human world in large numbers every year and become food on people’s tables. In the past, we naturally didn’t need to worry about eating fish, we just had to eat with confidence. However, as the ocean is continuously polluted by plastics, a lot of plastic enters the bodies of marine organisms. Although plastics are difficult to decompose, some of them will still be decomposed due to the powerful digestive power of life.
The decomposed plastic molecules did not disappear, but melted into the flesh of marine organisms. And there are many plastic particles in the ocean. They will also enter the body of small marine organisms and are more likely to be stored in the flesh in the form of molecules. When we eat fish, we will eat these plastic particles together, and finally lurking in the human body.
Scientists have indeed found the shadow of plastic particles through inspection of the human body. It can be seen that a large number of human plastics enter the ocean, polluting a large number of marine life, and humans eat marine life and put plastic bags into the human body, and finally give us health. Bring danger. Don’t you say that human beings eat their own evil consequences?
I believe that after reading this article, friends have realized how harmful plastic waste pollution is to humans. If this situation continues and cannot be controlled, then the future ocean will no longer be clean, there will be pollution everywhere, and a large number of marine life will not survive because of plastic pollution. At the same time, due to the long-term consumption of these various marine organisms with plastic particles, the accumulation of time will also cause various diseases.
We know that plastic pollution has such a great impact on human beings, why not recycle it and clean it up? One reason is that our current technology is indeed difficult to better decompose and recycle plastics. Another reason is that the cost of recycling is too much. Basically recycling plastic is a money-losing business. Take the 1.6 million square kilometer “junk continent” in the Pacific Ocean. If you want to completely clean it up, the cost you need to pay is not something a country can afford. , It takes the whole world to unite.