Planet or Plastic?

Of all the negative effects I've written about, plastic in the ocean have even more consequences than on the environment and marine life. It is now being investigated whether it has an impact on us humans or not, through consumption of seafood. When knowing this, maybe people will start caring more about what ends up in the ocean....... In a previous post I wrote about why fish eat the plastics, and even if plastic is non biodegredable, the sunlight, wind,waves and heat can still break down the plastic into little pieces called microplastics. To marine life, this looks a lot like food, such as algae and plankton, and it ends up in their bodies. In this article by National Geographic, scientists describe how they have found microplastics in 114 species, where about half of them are fish us humans eat. Does this have an impact on our bodies? It is not proven yet, but this scientific articles describes the many subjects plastic can be made of, and how that can have a toxic ...

In my Introduction post here on my blog I posted some disturbing photographs of marine animals being entangled in plastic waste, or in abandoned fishing nets. For me that is just one thing that goes right in to my heart. I just think of it as the turtle Crush in finding nemo (Flyt in Swedish) but behind the scenes after the movie, when his children are all grown up, and he’s alone and entangled in a fishing net, where he can’t get food or air, and eventually dies. National Geographic posted a really short video about how it feels to be an ocean animal stuck in a plastic bag...... It's 1,5 minute of your life. The ocean is huge, and us humans still haven’t explored it all. Yet, there are so much footage of marine life being stuck in plastics, or dead with their stomachs full of it. That just proves that this is a huge problem, for the people that don’t believe it yet, or who just don’t care. The biggest problem of animals being affected by plastic is usually not by acc...

When I wrote that the issue of plastic waste in the ocean is a problem that needs to be fixed by individuals, businesses and countries together, it’s all a circle. Let’s say if all businesses stop producing plastic, or let’s just talk about single-use plastic. Us as individuals would just have to adjust, because there is no supply anymore. But, this is not the case, a lot of businesses are trying to create solutions, but there is still a lot of single-use plastic available that us as individuals need to stop using. When that happens more and more businesses are forced to find a solution to keep the customers. The same goes for countries, which are basically large businesses. A lot of the plastic waste that is being directly dumped into the ocean and rivers are from areas in Asia, and then Africa and Latin America. The reason being is because of a less developed infrastructure and garbage waste system, than for example in North America, Europe, and Australia. The amount of people...

Scientists predict there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050 – And that’s probably the scariest Halloween story…..ever. So what can you individually do to help out with this big problem. Actually a lot…. National Geographic’s Planet or Plastic gives a lot of tips on how you can make an impact today. It starts with the little things. Then eventually, and hopefully the majority will think and act, and then that will lead to corporations changing their production to a better and more sustainable material than this massive amount of single-use plastic that is being used every single day. On this photo ICC - International Coastal Cleanup shows the most common items found in the ocean.  They all are single use products......... Article: https://www.ecowatch.com/beach-litter-plastics-ocean-conservancy-2581760475.html The two biggest actions that a lot of people already are doing and that is put a lot of emphasis on are as I mentioned las...

Hello again and welcome back, or just welcome to The Planet or Plastic blogg. My first post was just an introduction about general topics, and today it will be about Mother Nature and her skills..... Have you ever heard about The Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Honestly, I hadn’t until earlier this semester! From my biology teacher. I definitely knew about the issue of plastic waste in the ocean because I follow different accounts about it on Instagram, and you can see it a lot on Facebook for example. The photos/videos, and places people can travel to today is a lot wider than before and we are now more aware than ever about the massive amount of plastic waste in the ocean.  We know that the plastic waste float around everywhere in the ocean, but it mostly piles up in larger areas due to wind and currents in the ocean called patches. Or because Mother Nature is helping us clean it up, it’s like she’s sweeping it into piles in the house for us to throw out. At least th...

Hello dear followers, whom are probably only at this time a handful of people. So, Hello professor Hillyer, mom, dad, the other Jo and maybe even my boyfriend KJ. If there are readers out there already that I don’t know yet, and that don’t know me. My name is Johanna Englund and I am a foreign student athlete from Gothenburg Sweden at American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts. I am a senior Marketing major and this is my blog about plastic waste in the ocean and its effects on the marine life. The goal with this blog is to with the help of National Geographic’s campaign  Planet or Plastic?  promote their cause and raise awareness about the situation, and to make you guys start thinking about it, and to hopefully start helping out. If I can with the help of this blog make people, even if it’s 100 000 (I wish), 50 or 1 person, to start acting regarding their consumption of plastic in their everyday life we have achieved something good. I know you...