The Ocean CleanUp Project is really admirable. Plastic is a major issue in our world both on land and on sea. On land, it is more visible to us but even then, we don’t do enough. With the little time most people spend at sea, it is even harder to get people engaged in helping with the oceans. Yet, it should take most educated people little time to understand the potential consequences for our world if we do not clean the ocean.
Plastic floating around gets eaten by fish who die, or larger creatures get entangled in the plastic and sink to the bottom. Unable to swim, they drown. Dying sea animals means ecosystems are threatened and with that, so are the livelihood of many human professions related to the ocean. The changing animal ecosystem will also have influence on our on-land environment.
I believe more and more people are becoming aware of the environment, of the need to do something about our plastic and to clean after ourselves. I have seen examples of volunteer groups going to beaches and roadsides to clean trash. They take pictures of before they clean and after and upload it online. Yet it still doesn’t solve another problem: that we have way too much trash. China recently refused to continue accepting America’s trash and so did other countries. The United States now need to find ways to rid itself of its trash that will stockpile within its borders, but the reality is that China says no because it has too much of its own trash being produced.
And so, the Ocean CleanUp Project is taking the trash that should never have been in the water and putting it back on land. The next step is to find a solution that will help us take advantage of that trash to create renewable sources of clothing, consumer products, energy and so on. If trash can be recycled in a cost-effective way, there is enormous potential in trash to disrupt all kinds of industries.