Exploratory Analysis, Draft 2

Marine debris refers to the wasted material dumped into the sea bed after its primary purpose or use has been carried out. Plastic industry is one of the major cause of marine pollution. This is because plastic is cheap therefore, affordable by a high number of population on the earth. Moreover, the chemical composition of the plastic is not easily dissolvable in the natural conditions. The disposal of plastics make it much difficult for the humans to reduce plastic pollution on the planet whether dry surface or ocean bed. World bank generated the most recent and most comprehensive estimates of per capita waste generation rates and percentage of plastic waste for 145 countries in the year 2005. However, literature survey reveals that the reports of plastic pollution in the ocean first appeared in the scientific literature in the early 1970s. Presently, even after more than 40 years, there is big deficit observed in the production and reusability of the plastics. Plastics being versatile material of synthetic long chain polymers bring a lot of usage in daily life, however, resulting in the high risk to the marine life getting digested or entangled in microplastics causing suffocation, starvation, physical trauma and damage from chemicals. Here are some facts from the recently published European plastic journal.

355 billion euros turn over in the plastic industry only for the year 2017 is reported in Plastics- the fact 2017 by Plastic Europe. With a high market of plastic, annually an exponential increase of plastic production is observed from the reported facts. 230 million metric ton (Mt) was produced in 2005, whereas, the plastic production reaches 322 Mt in 2015, 335 Mt in 2016 and 350 Mt in 2017 [1] . In response to the exponential increase in plastic production, plastic waste management reports only 8.4 million tons of plastic recycling in the year 2017. It is reported that 5 trillion plastic with a buoyant burden of 260 thousands of marine debris is currently being faced by oceanic life [2]. To support the argument on the information on plastic wastes, it is interesting to know that a value between 4.8 to 12.7 Mt of plastic is dumped into oceans every year [2]. The facts are too convincing to foresee an exponential damage to the oceanic creatures causing severe environmental threats.

U.S plastic industry also plays a key part in the American economy accounting for an estimate of $423.3 billion in shipments and 989,000 workers in 2017. On a state level, California has the most plastic industry employment growth from 77000 workers to 78,500 workers in 2017. Following California, Ohio is the second most plastic production state. In a list of first five states, Texas comes at the third position and Michigan follows it. Although the measures have been taken through conferences and seminars to educate people in order to find recycling measures for the plastics but the growth in plastic industry is major cause to the plastic debris. Historical facts show, the US plastic industry continues to grow despite the several social, political and economic challenges. A 2.85 increase in jobs and 7% increase in the exporting shipments has been observed in the past years.

Certainly, plastics are becoming a big necessity for the daily use in modern life. Whereas most of the plastic items result in waste resulting in high threats to the global community. The plastic waste in ocean can be classified into four categories depending upon the width of the waste item. Plastic ranging up to 5 mm is categorized as microplastic, size of plastic ranging up to 2.5 cm is classified as mescoplastic, the next bracket lies at 1 meter, plastics ranging from 2.5 cm to 1m are classified as macro plastics and mega plastics are those ranging more than 1 meter in size. However, being small but microplastic is the excessive amount of plastic being observed in the Atlantic ocean and Caribbean sea. This amount of microplastic is dangerous due to the chemical structure of the polymers causing sever diseases among marine life once swollen. Microplastics can be transported by hydrodynamic process, winds and ocean currents and have been found abundant in the past few years. The studies have shown it high percentage in coastline, the Irish continental shelf, the Atlantic ocean, the Pacific ocean, European coastal areas and Indian ocean and even found in some regions of polar edges. With all the facts available, it is tedious to refresh the effect of plastic debris has caused to the ocean life. Studies have shown an estimate of 67 ships removing the plastics in ocean for one year will only compensate for 1% of the debris amount. Having all this information, the one of the quick measures is the reusability of the plastics in the industry. Moreover, it is required to know the major cause of the plastic debris in the ocean.

Studies have shown that the coastal areas are highly effected by the ocean waste, whereas it is interesting to know that the coastal areas with dense population are also the main source to wastes in ocean [3]. Coastal environments are directly impacted by this form of pollution due to their proximity to every land based source. Luring attractive natural views frequently invite tourists resulting in high economic growth for local authorities but results in a large plastic debris in oceanic bed. The resulted debris keep pilling without any measures to clean the ocean deposited items. This results in the higher percentage with the passing time. However, if corrective measures are taken the growth of plastic debris can be minimized by restricting the use of plastic in the coastal areas.

Removal of the plastic debris in the ocean is very difficult, however, there can be a lot of measures that can prevent the accumulation. The foremost measure requires the reusability of the plastics. Major responsibility of the reusability comes from the production line. New researches should be carried out in order to form the low cost plastic with high quality using the waste products. However, collection of used plastics is one of the major problems restricting the production corporations to meet the increasing demand. Therefore, high level laws should be formed such that the plastic reusability is made compulsory for the industries while reaching out to fulfil the increasing demand in market. Education has always been a very successful strategy in order to discipline the human nature. More seminars and conferences should be organized and campaigns should be run using social media like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Another way to increase the reusability of plastics is to introduce some incentive for the people returning back their disposed plastic items back to the venders. Finally, it is important to develop methods in order to relieve the marine life from the damage that has already been done. Measure should be taken in order to cure the marine reproduction.

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