Take a look around you, how many plastic items can you see? Whether it’s a plastic bag or a water bottle, plastic is all around us. We rely on plastic to go about our everyday lives! It is often used to bring the shopping home or to extend the life of our food, but it is easy to forget where all of this plastic is ending up. The ocean is well known for being the largest and most mysterious thing on our planet, but sadly it is most certainly not the cleanest. We are constantly remined of the endless amounts of rubbish and plastic that pollutes the world’s oceans, but are we really sure of the effects this is having on wildlife?

Currently, over 100 million marine animals are killed each year due to plastic debris in the ocean. It is estimated that there are 100 million tons of plastic in oceans around the world and this must change!

There are so many ways we can work together to save the ocean, including the obvious, try to  use fewer plastic products. Plastic is the main cause of deaths in marine life. It can get wrapped around their neck and strangle them, or even look like food to them thus killing them. Next time you let your plastic shopping bag blow away in the wind, think of the hundreds of fish, or the sea turtle, or the dolphin, or even the whale that lost their precious life thanks to you!

A very simple way to use less plastic is to carry reusable shopping bags. This is heavily enforced by many big brands as the ‘disposable’ plastic bags are now costing 5p. If we do not cut down on the use of plastic the ocean will no longer be a place for wildlife to thrive, instead it will be so polluted nothing will survive anymore! When you visit the beach do you really want to see dead turtles washed up on the shore as you go for a swim?

My friend Lily Buttery visits the beach every weekend and she says, “Oh my there’s so many bottles round!” She shops at Lidl and has purchased several reusable bags, she’s never a metre away from her bag for life. She is one of the most recyclable girls I know. She told me “I think the ocean pollution is an ongoing issue, and I try to keep it in mind everyday because I want my waters to be cleansed as the sea turtles are the brothers and sisters I never had.”

We must save the worlds beautiful ocean, it is hugely overlooked, but where would we be without it. The issue regarding pollution is terrible and after all the situation is only getting worse, the time is  now.  

By Alisha Howard, Farringtons School.