Introduction

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 all want to save a turtle or two. 


Let's start......

I am not going to go in depth of what plastic is made of, or where/how we use it because that would be too long for you to read, it is just used everywhere! 
Plastic is a very convenient and durable material that in the form that we know it as, was invented in the early 1900’s, and since then, its global production has doubled every decade since 1950 according to National Geographic. 
Attached is a short but very informational video made by National Geographic about plastic in general. Watch it! it’s not longer than any other video you all watch on Facebook every day.

Plastics 101 video - National Geographic

To change the world and remove all plastic in this minute would be nearly impossible. The issue lays mostly in what is called single-use plastic, which is the majority of plastic that ends up in the ocean. It’s things such as straws, plastic bags, bottles, cups, plastic rings around beer packs, fishing nets, utensils, wraps from candy, food, snacks, etc. That we can definitely do something about at this minute. 

This article describes nine short facts about single use plastic.....

Earthday.org - 9 facts regarding single use plastic

Every year about half of the global plastic production that is made are single-use plastics. The amount that end up in the ocean varies from different sources, but according to Greenpeace UK it counts up 12 million tons of plastic. Which is about…hmm…12 million tons too much!

To be continued, 

This was just a short (at least for me) introduction about a large topic, but don’t worry there will be more.

As of now, here are some photographs that hopefully will affect you to want to start acting, and National Geographics website regarding plastic in the ocean. It is a very well-made and interesting website I really suggest you take a look at. Click on the link, and start learning.

National Geographic Environment Website

In the upcoming posts I will write more about how it effects the marine life, advice in how to make a change, and what is globally done about it.  

"This is all your fault humans, but we will forgive you if you help us"

Linked is a list of five marine animals that are dying at the moment due to all the plastic waste floating around.

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/marine-animals-are-dying-because-of-our-plastic-trash/