WEEK 1-Environmental News-A third of coral reefs 'entangled with plastic'

An article published on BBC talking about the huge amount of plastic in our ocean and how it is affecting the coral reefs hits very close to home. Hawaii is the home to many beautiful coral reefs and it's very important to our marine life and ecosystem. Large amount of coral reefs due to the warming of the ocean have been bleach, and once it's bleach it's dead, therefore it's very important to take care of them. Coral reefs are homes and food source for many marine creatures, and a many of the fishes are our food sources, if the coral reefs are dead then it would affect our food source too. The article was mainly focused on the Asia-Pacific region and  that there are 11 billion plastic items was found on coral reefs, and it is estimated to increase to 15 billion in 2025, that's a significant number. Plastic not only affect coral reefs, our ocean quality, it can kill marine animals whom ingest it or get stuck on it, and imagine eating a fish with a piece of plastic in it. Everyone should take an initiative to cut down on plastic use and recycle.



    New York Time,1/25/18









Link to article:
Briggs, H. (2018, January 26). A third of coral reefs 'entangled with plastic'. Retrieved January 28, 2018, from http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42821004

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 30, 2018 at 3:03 PM

    What an interesting article! I had actually briefly learned about this issue while watching BBC on tv, however, I am happy you are providing the article and a description of what it was about. I completely agree, people should be more conscious about their plastic usage and recycling habits. They should also be wary when consuming fish, since (as you brought up) fish eat plastic so those plastics and chemicals will get into human bodies as well. Overall, the poisoning of marine ecosystems with plastics and other hazardous chemicals is toxic for both human populations and animal populations (aquatic and land). Therefore, everyone should take initiative and lessen their usage of plastics.

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  2. UnknownJanuary 30, 2018 at 7:29 PM

    Feng,
    I heard about this issue from visiting Bali last year. The coral reefs there are struggling as well due to plastic. Maybe as an initiative in Hawaii, you can do a plastic beach clean up every Friday! This was something the community members on the island of Gili Trawanagan would do every Friday to help contribute to saving the coral reefs.

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