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These are a few of the thoughts going wrought my mind while descending on my first open-water dive in Monterey, California. I hear the eerie silence, interrupted only by the sound of water surging past me. As the salty water trickles through my regulator and into my mouth, I feel the cold rush toward my bare face, the only exposed part of my body. I look through my goggles and see absolutely stunning animals and organisms that most people will only see in books and pictures. See coral and kelp, fish and sea stars, just swaying with the ocean – their home. Listener Relevance Link: It is their home that I, and many of you, use for creation. To swim, play, surf, scuba dive, boat, and other activities. It is also their home that the world is poisoning with pollutants and toxins every minute of every day. Ill. Speaker Credibility: As I observed the beauty of the ocean, I looked past the creatures and beneath the sandy sea floor. I was surprised to find some pieces of plastic and a few bottle caps, accompanied with more garbage. Although did notice these foreign objects, there was nothing could do at the moment.
So I continued on my journey in the deep, a little disturbed at the sight had just witnessed. This experience made me want to counter this action and enhance the quality of the ocean. IV. Thesis: Today, I am going to talk to you about how water toxins, pollutants, and human impact affect the ocean. (Transition: A significant problem with water toxins and pollutants are the negative effect it has on the ocean water and the marine life. ) BODY l. Need A. Some of the most common toxins and pollutants are in a destructive group called organogenesis and include toothache, Pubs, EDT, dioxins, and more. . According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, Pubs are Polycarbonate phenyl, which are mixtures of organic chemicals that are non-flammable, chemically stable, and have high insulating qualities, which make them ideal to use for paints, plastics, and rubber products. 2. Despite the beneficial qualities they hold, such as being an inexpensive material for everyday items, they are considered to be substances that build up in the food chain and accumulate to levels that are harmful to environmental health (www. Bluestockings. Org/plastics).
B. Step into the ocean and you will encounter everything from Pubs and dioxins to plastic bags, cigarette butts and bacteria from human waste. Canoe Lake and Steven Garret, authors of A guide to the surfing life, tell us that in polluted seas, ear and skin infections are common, and diseases including Hepatitis A have been known to be contracted. If this is how much contamination affects humans, just imagine the effect pollution has on smaller organisms. C. Oil is one of the most widespread pollutants in the marine environment.
Most oil spillage is caused by oil leakage in refineries, cargo ship and tanker accidents, and problems with blown out pipelines and drilling rigs. 1. A local and severe oil spill took place on November 7, 2007. A cargo vessel pilled 58,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel into the San Francisco Bay when it hit a tower of the Bay Bridge. A. Oiled sea birds are one of the most emotive images that come with the term oil spills. For every oiled seabird that lives long enough to be washed, many more have died at sea. The oil clogs their feathers, which provide insulation and buoyancy in the water.
As stated by the US Davis environmental toxicology newsletter, The Cisco Buses spill led to the death Of 1 ,803 birds on arrival, 634 birds in a cleaning environment, one harbor seal, one northern fur seal pup, three marbled murderers, two brown pelicans, ND one western snowy plover. B. These numbers show what a vast impact only one oil spill has on an environment. In the past, detergents and steam cleaning were used to clean up oil spills, but the damage made by those “treatments” were worse than just leaving the shore alone. D. Chemicals and foreign liquids are not the only factors causing harm in the ocean.
Many tangible objects, especially plastic, glass, and other trash, contaminate the deep blue sea. 1. The main problem with plastics is that they will virtually never go away. Most consumers throw them away, but they do not go away, they just go elsewhere. Out of sight, out of mind. Animals suffer injury, and in many cases death, from their encounters with plastic. Animals can be harmed through entanglement, laceration, suffocation, and ingestion. Depending which body of water and the buoyancy of it, plastics thrown into the water can either float, sink, Or stay in the Water column, leaving nowhere for animals to hide.
The animals often mistake plastic pieces for food and ingest them. Discarded plastic packaging, fishing nets, and ropes usually take several years to break up. Meanwhile marine animals become entangled and trapped. Each ear, enormous numbers of plastics, ropes, fishnets, glass and metal are dumped in the sea. Some broken down by wave action, but most are non- biodegradable and stay in the water for years on years. 2. Anything glass will theoretically be in the water for eternity. Glass is non- biodegradable and chemically stable in seawater.
It can remain unchanged for an unrestricted period of time. A motorbike dumped in the water will take 50 years just to rust away. The engine will take at least 200 years to dissolve completely (Hutchinson). The oil and petrol residues will harm animals for a very long amount of time. . Some people may not care about these effects because they “do not have anything to do with humans”, but think about how the food chain works. Small organisms will feed on this rust and oil residue. The larger fish will feed off those small organisms. All the while, we, humans, are catching these fish and eating them.
At the rate that people are catching and eating fish. Who knows how many fish have been distributed that had harmful residue on their surfaces. 3. Other debris that is more ocean-based comes from boats, specifically merchant ships. Plastic is used for a plethora Of Uses on a merchant ship. This includes plastic strapping bands, sheeting, and shrink-wrap, which all interfere with marine wildlife. Recreational fishing holds home to one of the deadliest forms of debris imaginable – infotainment line. This is the strong, clear, common fishing line used with common fishing poles.
Fishermen often cut this when it becomes snarled or snagged on an object. It is not unusual to find a single segment of line with several dead birds entangled in it. 4. The amount of junk in the sea has a lot to do with the amount of junk on the beach. “Urban means city, city means people, and people mean trash. Add an adjacent ocean to the equation, and trash means marine debris. About 70% of the Lignite States population lives within fifty miles of a coast (Including the great lakes); it should be of no surprise that a big portion of marine debris comes from land.
Candy wrappers, cigarette butts, plastic straw and drink lids, Styrofoam cups, and plastic bags all find their way to coastal waters by storm drain (Come). Anything that can fit through the grate of a storm drain or anything of the like is usually untreated and end up in the oceans in which we swim. Everyone has seen it; Six-pack rings, average cans and bottles, cigarette butts, plastic bags, fireworks, and suntan lotion bottles are common things to find on the sandy beaches. Everyone has seen it, yet few people actually do something to get rid of the outlandish waste.
All of the trash we see on the beach find their way into the waves, and soon enough to the bottom of the ocean. (Transition: Now that we know the affect this marine litter and pollution has on ocean life, how can we help fix it? ) . Satisfaction A. Even though human impact and pollutants have caused damage, it does not mean it is too late to help and improve quality of the ocean. Many conservation and restoration efforts have been made already, and there are many efforts people can make to keep the ocean clean.