MARINE POLLUTION

Oceans are “one of the five large areas of salt water that cover much of the Earth’s surface”. All of us depend on the oceans for our food, drinking water and even the oxygen in the air that we breathe, without it we would surely become extinct.  Careful management of this essential global resource is a key feature of a sustainable future. However, at the current time human activities are threatening the health of the world’s oceans. More than 80 percent of marine pollution comes from land-based activities. There is a continuous deterioration of coastal waters owing to pollution, and ocean acidification is having an adversarial effect on the functioning of ecosystems and biodiversity. This is also negatively impacting small scale fisheries. Saving our ocean must remain a priority. Marine protected areas need to be effectively managed, well-resourced and regulations need to be put in place to reduce marine pollution.

Plastic is one of the major sources of marine pollution. Marine trash encompasses all manufactured products and most of them are plastic which end up in the ocean.  Littering and poor waste management all contribute to the accumulation of this debris. Almost 80 percent comes from sources on land. Common types of marine debris include various plastic items such as shopping bags, beverage bottles, bottle caps, food wrappers, and fishing gear. Plastic waste is particularly problematic as a pollutant because it is so long-lasting because plastic items can take hundreds of years to decompose.

This trash poses dangers to both humans and animals. Fish become tangled and injured in the debris. Small organisms feed on tiny bits of broken-down plastic, and absorb the chemicals from the plastic into their tissues. In this way, the plastic pollution migrates up the food chain, eventually becoming part of the food that humans eat. Floating plastic also accumulates microbes and algae on the surface. Once animals consume it, ingested plastic can pierce internal organs or cause fatal intestinal blockages and it also leads to starvation, because a stomach crammed with plastic gives an animal of being full. Thus, the plastic dumps are affecting the marine life so badly that the situation has become alarming for the marine ecosystem. 

Apart from that, oil spills from ships also cause marine pollution. It is one of the major toxins that contaminate ocean water which does not clean up so easily. The release of petroleum products to the sea and land affecting both aquatic life and living organisms living on land respectively. Most of these oil spills occur due to human activities. Aquatic animals are the most affected when an oil spill happens. They will die to lack of oxygen in the sea. Apart from just dying they usually starve for a while. Spilled oil can harm living things because its chemical constituents are poisonous. This can affect marine organisms both from internal exposure to oil through ingestion or inhalation and from external exposure through skin and eye irritation. Oil can also smother some small species of fish or invertebrates and coat feathers and fur, reducing birds' and mammals' ability to maintain their body temperatures.

On March 2019, thousands of Malaysians fell sick after been exposed to different chemicals illegally dumped into the Kim Kim River, located in Pair Gudang Johor. According to an investigation after the incident, local authorities estimated that "around 20 to 40 tonnes of oil waste were illegally dumped into Kim Kim river. The chemical waste come from the factories nearby. The contamination has sickened more than 5000 people including hundreds of students and children. They have been exposed mostly through inhalation of the toxic fumes emanating from the chemical waste. Although the effects of an oil spill are devastating, even more saddening is the fact that these effects can last for years after a spill. This is because even after being cleaned up, oil can remain within the water and organisms, affecting marine life and human beings. Additionally, it can be difficult for an ecosystem to return to a balanced state. From this incident, it is important to know the long term effects of oil exposure.

Oil spills can make drinking water sources unfit for use and is very expensive to put right. It is very harmful to drink water that has oil in it. The water that comes out of the ground when oil is drilled is also very toxic. Clean drinking water is essential for human life. The effect lack of clean drinking water may lead to waterborne diseases hence causing death. This epidemic once happened in Malaysia when oil spilled into a water supply.

In conclusion, marine pollution which also known as ocean pollution is a giant threat to not only marine organisms, but to the human as well. Pollution can cause dead zones, a decline in fish catch, stunted reproduction and growth and altered breeding patterns. The health of the ocean has significant consequences on human health. For example, 70% of the oxygen we breathe is generated by marine plants. Human race relies on the ocean for a large portion of its sustenance, it is important to mitigate any pollution that can threaten marine species. Since oceans provide the home to a wide variety of marine animals and plants, it is the responsibility of every citizen to play his or her part in making these oceans clean again.

REFERENCES

Connell, D. W. (2018). Pollution in tropical aquatic systems. CRC Press.

Ober, H. K. (2010). Effects of oil spills on marine and coastal wildlife. EDIS Press.

Saadoun, I. M. (2015). Impact of oil spills on marine life. Emerging pollutants in the  environment-current and further implications, 75-104.

Shamseer, M. (2021, September 23). How is plastic ruining the oceans in the worst way?

            https://www.marineinsight.com/environment/how-is-plastic-ruining-the-ocean/

Torben, L. (2016, April 16). How ocean pollution impacts marine life and all of us?http://www.marinesafe.org/blog/2016/04/18/how-ocean-pollution-impacts-marine-life-   and-all-of-us/