Stop Ocean Pollution Articles

Ocean Pollution



As ocean pollution mounts, "toxic slime" rises up, destroying ocean life
8/1/2006 - (NaturalNews) The pollution of the world's oceans is extracting a price from ocean life and human life -- scientists say a dangerous "toxic slime" is rising up from the depths. One such symptom is a mutated strain of a 2.7-billion-year-old cyanobacteria...


Mass pollution of earth's oceans reaches alarming levels
8/7/2004 - The health of the world's oceans is being destroyed by human beings, and a new group called the Seaweed Rebels wants to do something about it. It's all part of the so-called "blue movement" that hopes to raise awareness of the destruction now being dished


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(NaturalNews) The pollution of the world's oceans is extracting a price from ocean life and human life -- scientists say a dangerous "toxic slime" is rising up from the depths.

One such symptom is a mutated strain of a 2.7-billion-year-old cyanobacteria known as fireweed, which has stricken Moreton Bay fishermen with searing welts, and caused difficulty breathing when accidentally inhaled.

When fishermen reported the substance, it was dismissed until a sample made it to the University of Queensland. While in a drying oven, the sample released fumes toxic enough to send professors and students gasping for air.

"We know the human factor is responsible (for fireweed). We just have to figure out what it is," said William Dennison, former director of the University of Queensland botany lab.

While the ocean was long thought to be immune to humanity's influence, accumulated environmental influences -- such as over-fishing and runoff from pollutants -- have now altered the basic chemistry of the oceans and made them more supportive to primitive life. Harmful algae, similar to fireweed, have shown up off the coast of Sweden, on the Southern coast of Maui, on Florida's Gulf Coast and north of Venice. The Spanish coast is also overcrowded with jellyfish.

Advanced oceanic life forms are struggling for survival while primitive life forms -- such as algae, bacteria and jellyfish -- are starting to spread unchecked. This regression of evolution is "the rise of slime," according to Jeremy B.C. Jackson, a marine ecologist and paleontologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif.

Over-fishing has started an evolutionary regression that has spun into a vicious circle. There has been a dramatic reduction in the numbers of turtles that prey on jellyfish and an overabundance of the plankton they love to eat, and this has lead some fishermen to become jellyfishermen.

"Easy money," said former shrimp fisherman Grovea Simpson of the creatures. "They get so thick you can walk on them."

Simpson cannot scrape together enough of his original catch to make a living anymore, so he catches great hauls of jellyfish, which are then shipped to China and Japan, where they are delicacies.

The historic fishing industry of California has also taken a dramatic turn. Three of the top five commercial catches are not fish, but squid, crab and sea urchins, and the still-surging numbers of jellyfish may catapult them to Western plates sooner rather than later.

University of British Columbia fisheries Scientist Daniel Pauly fears that one day "My kids will tell their children: Eat your jellyfish."

Perhaps the biggest casualties of humanity's lifestyle side effects are the coral reefs. Although they only cover 1 percent of the oceans' floors, they support nearly 25 percent of all ocean life.

Marine ecologist Brian Lapointe has been studying the effects of algae on a coral reef at Looe Key, Fl. When he recalls seeing the eroded reef -- starved of life-giving sunlight by the algae canopy, and purged of life by suffocating bacteria that thrives on sewage -- he likens it to coming home to find one's house ransacked by burglars.

"It rips my heart out," he says.

Marine pollution occurs when harmful effects, or potentially harmful effects, can result from the entry into the ocean of chemicals, particles, industrial, agricultural and residential waste, or the spread of invasive organisms.
Most sources of marine pollution are land based. The pollution often comes from nonpoint sources such as agricultural runoff and wind blown debris.

Many potentially toxic chemicals adhere to tiny particles which are then taken up by plankton and benthos animals, most of which are either deposit or filter feeders. In this way, the toxins are concentrated upward within ocean food chains. Many particles combine chemically in a manner highly depletive of oxygen, causing estuaries to become anoxic.

When pesticides are incorporated into the marine ecosystem, they quickly become absorbed into marine food webs. Once in the food webs, these pesticides can cause mutations, as well as diseases, which can be harmful to humans as well as the entire food web.

Pollution in our oceans is a serious problem. According to Marie Wild in her article ???Ocean Pollution???, ???Ocean pollution is one of the major killers of our sea animals.??? Most of the waste that is dumped is plastic, which takes hundreds of years to break down (Oceanic Research Foundation [ORF]). People are destroying aquatic life through the dumping of waste materials into the waters, and the chemical runoffs, which unbalances the natural food chain.
Everyday millions of animals are caught in fishing nets and six pack beer rings. It is thought that only fish are affected from getting caught in these. In reality they also kill birds, turtles, dolphins and seals. The animals are slowly strangled or suffocated by the rings as well as cans, fishing line, nets, kite strings and ropes (Wild). Or, as stated be

At the same time that marine scientists are reporting that the world???s growing appetite for seafood may drive major fish populations to extinction in coming decades, humans are undermining marine health by using the oceans as a dumping ground.1 (See Figure 1.) From inland farms and coastal sewage systems to transoceanic cruises and greenhouse gases, 80 percent of pollutants in oceans originate on land.2 And although certain national and international laws have curbed oil spills and dumping by cruise ships, the amount of contaminants accumulating in oceans grows, even as the oceans??? ability to dilute these substances declines.3

Many substances that are carried into the world???s rivers and streams eventually find their way into coastal waterways and oceans. Around 60 percent of the wastewater discharged into the Caspian Sea is untreated, for example, while in Latin America and the Caribbean the figure is close to 80 percent and in large parts of Africa and the Indo-Pacific region the proportion is as high as 90 percent.4 In the United States alone, more than 3.2 trillion liters of sewage???including human waste, detergents, and household chemicals???gush untreated into waterways every year.5 Worldwide, an estimated $56 billion is needed annually to address this enormous wastewater problem.6 By some estimates, the fastest-growing source of ocean pollution is the chemicals, human waste, and trash that run off of coastal city streets into ocean-bound storm drains.7

More than half of the world lives in coastal areas (within 200 kilometers of shore) that cover just 10 percent of Earth???s surface.8 These coastal populations are increasing at twice the rate of inland ones.9 An estimated 70 percent of the world???s tropical coasts have been developed for housing, fish farms, or industrial ports, and the United Nations expects 90 percent will be developed by 2032.10

Nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients from fertilizers, large livestock farms, and septic systems provoke explosive blooms of tiny plants known as phytoplankton, which die and sink to the bottom and then are eaten by bacteria that use up the oxygen in the water.11 This oxygen starvation creates ???dead zones??? that make it difficult for fish, oysters, sea grass beds, and other marine creatures to survive.12 There are now about 200 of these zones around the world, roughly one third more than just two years ago.13 The most severe cases exceed 20,000 square kilometers, as in the Gulf of Mexico, the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, the East China Sea, and the Baltic Sea.14

The U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that 46,000 pieces of plastic litter??? including bits of packaging, cigarette lighters, plastic bags, and diapers???are floating on every square mile of the oceans, a figure that has increased threefold since the 1960s.15 Marine conservation groups estimate that more than a million seabirds and 100,000 mammals and sea turtles die globally each year by getting tangled in or ingesting plastics.16

Even pollution of the atmosphere???in the form of greenhouse gases and resulting climate change???is taking a growing toll on ocean life. Climate change is altering fish migration routes, pushing up sea levels, leading to more coastal erosion, raising ocean acidity levels to a point where they threaten calcium-building species like corals and shellfish, and interfering with ocean currents that move vital nutrients upward from the deep sea.17 The latter generates chaos among plankton, the foundation of the ocean food chain, that ironically help store carbon dioxide in the ocean floor as they die and decompose; the oceans have absorbed about half of the carbon dioxide produced by humans in the last 200 years.18

Humans suffer, of course, when ocean pollution reduces fish populations or stains the pristine nature of beach recreation. Industrial pollutants, like mercury or PCBs, that end up in water bodies are absorbed by fish we eat. In the last half-century, scientists around the world have tracked a 10-fold increase in pollution-fed algae blooms, which have produced toxins that poison sea life, seafood, and even humans swimming in and living near the ocean.19

Some of the most pernicious forms of ocean pollution are generated by the very people and industries that benefit directly from the pristine nature of the seas. Lax state and federal antipollution laws allow the world???s growing fleet of more than 200 cruise ships to dump into the ocean untreated sewage from sinks and showers and inadequately treated sewage from toilets.20 Once ships are three miles from shore, they can dump all untreated sewage, including bacteria, pathogens, detergents, and heavy metals. Each day, a standard cruise ship generates some 114,000 liters of sewage from toilets; 852,000 liters of sewage from sinks, galleys, and showers; seven tons of garbage and solid waste; 57 liters of toxic chemicals; and 26,500 liters of oily bilge water.21

Oceana, an international ocean protection group, launched a campaign to introduce Clean Cruise Ship legislation in California and at the U.S. federal level to prohibit dumping of boat sewage.22 And following an aggressive 11-month grassroots campaign aimed at the world???s second largest cruise line, Royal Caribbean agreed to install advanced wastewater treatment technology on all 29 of its ships.23

Since its formation in 1995, UNEP???s Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-Based Sources has helped reduce oil discharges and spills into the oceans by 63 percent compared with levels in the mid-1980s.24 And tanker accidents have dropped by 75 percent, partly as a result of the shift to double-hulled tankers.25

The general public, perhaps because people care about eating seafood or because the oceans seem worth protecting, is also beginning to clean up pollution. Beginning in 1986, the Ocean Conservancy organized shoreline cleanups each fall.26 To date, 6.2 million volunteers in International Coastal Cleanups have removed 49 million kilograms of debris from nearly 288,000 kilometers of coasts in 127 nations.27 Nearly 60 percent of all debris is from recreational activities, including fishing lines and nets, beach toys, and food wrappers. An additional 29 percent is cigarette butts and filters.28

Large and small craft significantly pollute both inland and coastal waters by dumping their untreated sewage. Oil spilled accidentally or flushed from tankers and offshore rigs (900,000 metric tons annually) sullies beaches and smothers bird, fish, and plant life. In 1989 in one of the world's worst single instances of water pollution, the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil in Prince William Sound, Alaska, causing great environmental destruction. In 1997, the 22 oil spills reported worldwide involved a total of 15 million gallons (57 million liters) of oil. In addition to its direct damage to wildlife, oil takes up fat-soluble poisons like DDT, allowing them to be concentrated in organisms that ingest the oil-contaminated water; thus such poisons enter the food chains leading to sea mammals and people (see ecology).

Both DDT, which has been banned in the United States since 1972, and PCBs are manufactured in many parts of the world and are now widespread in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In addition, tarry oil residues are encountered throughout the Atlantic, as are styrofoam and other plastic rubbish. Plastic bits litter sections of the Pacific as far north as Amchitka Island near Alaska. Garbage, solid industrial wastes, and sludge formed in sewage treatment, all commonly dumped into oceans, are other marine pollutants found worldwide, especially along coastal areas

Countries around the world are helping to clean our oceans. It is now illegal for ships in many countries to dump plastic in the ocean. More new plastic products are biodegradable. Many communities hold annual beach clean-ups. In the U.S., the Clean Water Act regulates the chemicals which can be disposed of in waterways. We can all help too by recycling trash and using less plastic.

DID YOU KNOW??

Plastic is the most common type of ocean trash.

DID YOU KNOW??

Last year, volunteers picked up more than 5,000,000 pieces of trash during U.S. beach clean-ups.

DID YOU KNOW??

It can take up to 400 years for a plastic bag to decompose in the ocean.

Vocabulary

Find the ocean pollution words.

(The words go up, down, forward, backward, and diagonally.)

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Weekly Lab

Ocean animals often mistake trash for food.

You need: M&Ms[TM], cups, small bowls, teaspoons

Step 1: Fill your bowl with M&Ms[TM].

Step 2: With your spoon, try to get the red and yellow food. All the other ones are litter and trash.

Step 3: Put your food in a cup. Do this within 10 seconds.

How did you do?

Did you avoid-the trash?

Did you get enough to eat?

Step 4: Do this again, but this time try to get as much food as you can. What percentage of food to trash did you end up with?

DID YOU KNOW??

In a U.S. beach clean-up in 1990, volunteers found 10 kitchen sinks.

DID YOU KNOW??

Eating trash can cause ocean animals to suffocate, starve, or suffer internal injuries.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Weekly Problem

To find out more ocean pollution facts, solve these problems.

1) About 36% of the world's 312 species of seabirds are known to eat plastic. About how many species of seabirds eat plastic? []

2) 109 countries have coral reefs. Almost 85% of these reefs are being damaged by human contact. About how many reefs are being damaged? []

3) One year, the city of Santa Monica spent $1,275,354 to keep a 3-mile stretch of beach clean. How much, on average, did it cost the city each month? []

DID YOU KNOW??

Over 75% of the migratory water birds live in or depend on coastal beaches.

DID YOU KNOW??

Fishermen's drift nets can be 40 miles long.

Discarded nets can entangle sea animals.

DID YOU KNOW??

Sea turtles often eat plastic bags, mistaking them for jellyfish, a favorite food.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Writing for Science

You are a contestant on a new reality TV show called "Survivor with Less Trash." TV cameras follow families around day and night, keeping track of how much trash they generate. The family who makes the least trash in 1 month wins. The grand prize is a whale-watching cruise for the whole family, plus 2 weeks of no homework for the kids.

Think about all the trash your family throws away and how much could end up in the ocean. Write up your plan for winning the grand prize.

DID YOU KNOW??

Each person in the U.S. generates about 5 pounds of garbage per day.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Challenge

There are many kinds of trash in the ocean. Some of it is buoyant, that means it floats. It's easy for ocean animals to find buoyant trash.

Put these things in a container of water:

sock paper lunch bag straw plastic sandwich bag Kleenex or paper napkin plastic bottle 2 pieces of your own trash

water pollution
Any addition to fresh or seawater that interferes with biological processes or causes a health or environmental hazard. Common pollutants include nitrates, pesticides, and sewage (resulting from poor sewage disposal methods), although a huge range of industrial contaminants, such as chemical by-products and residues created in the manufacture of various goods, also enter water ??? legally, accidentally, and through illegal dumping.

In December 2002, United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan launched the International Year of Fresh Water 2003. By the end of 2003, the UN estimated that around 1 billion people worldwide did not have access to safe drinking water and that two-thirds of the world's population would live under ???water stress??? conditions by 2025 if trends were not changed.

Concern is growing over the amount of medication in drinking water, as up to 90% of a dose of antibiotics is excreted in the urine. Other drugs, from aspirin to oestrogen from the contraceptive pill, are also excreted and end up in the environment. Inevitably, some of these drugs find their way back into our drinking water.


Scientists have warned that certain pollutants present in drinking water can mimic the female hormone oestrogen and that this could have an impact on male fertility. A US study released in 2002 produced the first scientific proof that environmental oestrogens could prevent adult sperm from being able to fertilize eggs. The study showed that combinations of industrial products such as herbicides, pesticides, and synthetic paints could artificially speed up the maturity of sperm, rendering them unable to penetrate the walls of an egg.


The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reported in 2003 that nutrient contamination of water supplies was causing increased environmental damage and causing the formation of extensive ???dead zones??? for aquatic life, especially in the world's fishing areas. Excessive nutrient content in water from human activities, such as sewerage and the overuse of nitrogen-based fertilizers in agriculture, promotes the uncontrolled growth of ???blooms??? of algae. These tiny plants fall to the seabed where they decompose, a process that starves the surrounding water of oxygen, creating a zone that does not support fish and other marine life. UNEP reported that the number of known ???dead zones??? in the world has risen to 150 and this number had doubled every decade since monitoring began in the 1960s.


In 2003, of the 120 million tonnes of nitrogen-based fertilizer that is used globally, only 20 million was incorporated into crops while the remainder is washed into rivers and the sea.


This article is ?? Research Machines plc 2009. All rights reserved. Helicon Publishing is a division of Research Machines plc.


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Many people aren't still aware that ocean pollution is a major problem that isn't only affecting the ocean but the rest of the Earth as well. Ocean pollution directly affects living organisms in ocean and indirectly humans and their health. There are many sources of pollution and the most dangerous is illegal dumping, especially of poisonous materials. This illegal dumping is unfortunately so, wide spread and is causing damage to many plants and animals in the ocean. On top of the food chain we could easily end up eating seafood that was harmed by some toxic materials before it came to our plates. Especially dangerous is the lead which can cause a lot of health problems, especially damaging brain and kidneys. Recycling is the right answer but unfortunately not for all people.

Dumping is the biggest problem but there are other problems as well like wastewater, use of pesticides and other chemicals in agriculture, which you definitely wouldn't think of right away. Wastewater is a run-off from rainwater that ends up in rivers, lakes and oceans as well. Majority of people still don't know that this run-off is going into the ocean at daily bases in small amounts which are piling hence creating a major problem. Agriculture is also harmful to the ocean because pesticides and other dangerous chemicals are taken off of the plants and carried to the oceans when it rains.

Oil pollution also has tremendous affects on oceans and presents real dangers in form of tankers and their possible failure or crash which could lead to oil leakage as it was the infamous Exxon Valdez incident. In this accident 10.8 million gallons were spilled, causing deaths of many animals, including 250,000???500,000 seabirds, 2,800???5,000 sea otters, approximately 12 river otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, and 22 orcas, as well as the destruction of billions of salmon and herring eggs.

Oil spill cleaning efforts usually need months or even years to clean up the polluted area and by the time cleaning is done many fish species, seabirds and even some mammals had already died because of it. And as the scientific results in infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill showed effects are far more lasting than it was expected, and some habitats may take more than 30 years to recover, which is very long time so you can imagine total negative impact on affected ecosystems.

Global warming is another major problem and is concerning oceans as well. Global warming causes the water to rise and when it rises, it covers low land islands with plants, animals, and even some people???s homes on them. This can hurt animals in the different layers of the ocean. Other problem is warm water that is killing some algae which can't stand this temperature, and this has effect on complete food chain because there are some fishes that eat these algae, meaning they don't have food, some other fishes eat this fishes meaning they don???t have food as well, etc, and the food chain is irreversibly broken.

There are indeed many problems but not that many answers because all ecological problems are connected on the global scale and therefore solving one of them isn't completely possible without solving all of them, which is at this moment almost impossible task. Public conscience still isn't on the required level, scientists' warnings aren???t still seriously understood and legislation is insufficient and not strict enough. There's also need for global action, because world is one big community and some individual action won't solve anything, although it could point out way the things should go to. Now, will this way be followed and by whom it remains to be seen. We can only hope for the best and contribute as much as we can.

Ocean pollution happens every day and is harmful to many sea plants and animals and eventually to the human health as well.

Types of Ocean Pollution
Amoco Cadiz Oil Spill
Prestige Oil Spills
Coastal Dead Zones
Types of Pollution
What do we really mean when we talk about ocean pollution?

For close to thirty years, most academics studying ocean pollution have used a definition developed by a United Nations body, the Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution (GESAMP). GESAMP defines marine pollution as,


"Introduction of man, directly or indirectly, of substances or energy into the marine environment (including estuaries) resulting in such deleterious effects as harm to living resources, hazard to human health, hindrance to marine activities including fishing, impairment of quality for use of sea-water, and reduction of amenities."

Two parts of the definition stand out. First, it is human oriented, thereby omitting all natural activities that could potentially have damaging effects on the ocean ecosystem. Volcanic eruptions that emanate from the ocean floor and subsequently damage or change already existing ocean ecosystems would not be considered pollution.

Second, the definition is amenable to measurement. Scientists can also readily identify various toxic substances found in the marine environment, measure their quantities, and provide estimates of their potential danger for the health of both marine life and humans. Oil spills, for example, are usually discussed in terms of the amount of oil spilled, along with estimates of the damage to bird life, marine life and the economic well being of the surrounding communities.

Another common way to conceptualize marine pollution is by its sources, usually defined as land-based or sea based.

Land-based sources such as agricultural run-off that create coastal dead zones, and other municipal and industrial sources contribute anywhere from seventy to eighty percent of current marine pollution problems. The article on coastal dead zones provides more detail on one particular type of land-based marine pollution.

Sea based pollution, such as that caused by ocean dumping and oil spills, accounts for the remaining pollution. The articles on the Amoco Cadiz oil spill and Prestige oil spill, provide more detailed informaiton on the ecological problems associated with oil spills.

Readers will find out about the major water pollution concerns. Some information is quoted from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Readers will learn how ocean pollution can begin in the home, and how this pollution can find its way to the ocean. Also, major sources of water, estuaries, and ocean pollution are listed.

Effects of Water Pollution

The article provides information about human health hazards due to water pollution. Ocean pollution effects on the coral reefs and marine life are explored, and how these pollution effects can have an impact on humans and the economy.

List of Environmental Problems

Readers will learn about the direct and indirect lists of environmental problems caused by various products introduced into water systems. Some information is quoted from the Environmental Protection Agency. A list of things people can do in their own homes to make waters cleaner and safer is provided.

Solution for Ocean Pollution

The article provides information about what environmental organizations are doing to help reduce ocean, estuaries, and water pollution.

Effects of Global Warming

Readers will learn how global warming is affecting water pollution. A source reveals the amount of air pollution absorbed into the ocean.

There is some oil in the ocean but it is extremely small and the bacteria tend to eat it up. It is also replenished by seeps and leaks from the ocean floor, so yes there is a small amount, but it would be localized into areas where there is oil, and you probably would have to go there and look very hard for it.
On an oil spill, about 25-50% of the oil evaporates into the air, depending upon the amount and kind of oil spilled. So yes, the air is polluted locally above the spill.
3. The prevention of oil spills is a matter of planning and caution. Some spills happen because of carelessness. Others happen from marine accidents, or transportation accidents. For marine spills, the new double hulled tankers appear to be effective in preventing leaks in the event of a minor ship collision
Pollution in our oceans is a serious problem. According to Marie Wild in her article "Ocean Pollution", "Ocean pollution is one of the major killers of our sea animals.". Most of the waste that is dumped is plastic, which takes hundreds of years to break down (Oceanic Research Foundation [ORF]). Everyday millions of animals are caught in fishing nets and six pack beer rings. It is thought that only fish are affected from getting caught in these. In reality they also kill birds, turtles, dolphins and seals. The animals are slowly strangled or suffocated by the rings as well as cans, fishing line, nets, kite strings and ropes (Wild). Or, as stated be the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), they die from accidental consumption (NWF website). Garbage is not the only threat to the safety of our oceans though, other thing
All of these things are polluting our oceans and slowly killing organisms that are vital to the environment. The purification cycle continues when these plants and animals die and the bacteria decompose them, providing new generations of organisms with nourishment. This decomposition produces the carbon dioxide, nutrients and other substances needed by plants and animals living in the water. Also responsible are the factories that are located on the coast. s, such as, air pollution and chemicals are dangers too. Ships cause much of this pollution, often dumping raw sewage into the ocean (Ocean Dumping-The Causes of Ocean Pollution; Ed Hunt, pg. A large increase could lead to long term rises in the levels of water mutagens, pathogens, teratogens and radioactive materials (Hunt 46). Energy from sunlight drives the process of photosynthesis in aquatic plants, which produces oxygen to break down some of the organic material such as plant and animal waste. This overabundance of nutrients is causing algae blooms worldwide, impacting the marine food web. Also stated in the article was:Water is purified in large part by the routine actions of living organisms. In previous years major culprits were paper mills and related plants, which would release waste into the ocean. These are called persistent and are of great environmental concern. Over sixty percent of the raw or treated sewage produced by man, rich in nitrogen, is being dumped into the oceans causing eutrophication in coastal waters.
If you???ve been watching the news lately, you???ve probably heard a lot about global warming and how it threatens our environment. But what you???ve probably not heard as much about is pollution. Pollution is something that, while having been greatly reduced, still damages the environment. As a scuba diver, you will be especially concerned with ocean pollution. This is a serious problem that can greatly hinder your experiences as a scuba diver. In this article, you will be learning much about ocean pollution and how it effects you, as a scuba diver.

What is Ocean Pollution?

While it is true that natural disasters like volcanoes, storms and earthquakes can damage the water, these are not forms of ocean pollution because they occur naturally. Thus, water (or ocean) pollution is the damaging of the ocean by humans. It is something that is caused by humans polluting the water. Ocean pollution is not caused by one simple pollutant, but rather many.

What Contaminates the Water?

Anytime a big business dumps things into the ocean, it is polluting the ocean. Anytime raw sewage goes into the ocean, it is polluting it. Basically, anything that goes into the water that does not belong there???such as tree debris from logging operations, heavy metals, food processing waste etc.???is an ocean pollutant.

What???s Being Done to Reduce and Prevent Ocean Pollution?

Thankfully, ocean pollution isn???t as great of a problem as it was a decade or more ago. However, like many other things, there is still much work to be done. Regulations passed by the United Kingdom and United States during the 90???s and 00???s have helped to regulate ocean pollution. Not nearly as many people are polluting the ocean with chemicals and things that do not belong there. Businesses can no longer pollute as freely as they once did. As a result, pollution numbers have dropped. But there still remains a lot of ocean pollution, which is why it is such a major concern for all those who enjoy the ocean???especially scuba divers.

Water Pollution and Scuba Diving: What You Need to Know

Have you ever taken a bath in dirty water? Have you ever gone swimming in a swamp? Most likely, you haven???t because doing so would be, well, disgusting. The same can be said for scuba diving in polluted water. Polluted water can contain all kinds of chemicals and bacteria that can be very harmful for your health. In fact, it can even cause you to become ill. So you can see why ocean pollution is such a big deal.

So what else do you need to know about ocean pollution? Well, the most important thing to know is that it can be very harmful for you to scuba dive in a heavily polluted ocean. Even scuba diving in a somewhat polluted ocean can be damaging. Therefore, you should try to go scuba diving only in water that is not heavily polluted???if polluted at all. It is important, thus, to research any place you plan on going scuba diving in. See if the ocean you are considering has been declared polluted by a government environmental agency. Do you homework to make sure that any place you go is safe and as free from ocean pollution as possible.


you should be more careful with what you do with your trash anywhere anytime every minute theres a poor sea creature be killed because you and your trash every hour over 1 million animals are dead because of pollution.theirs so many things to do to help stop pollution help stop now go look up ways to help stop pollution on www.google.com

Save Over Millions Of Sea Creatures Lifes In Under One Day!

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