Some people can unwrap a granola bar and throw it right onto the ground without giving it a second thought. They fail to see the consequences in the long run of their actions. Being in a culture where society generally uses products that can be easily made and thrown away we often forget the impact we have on the world around us. We as humans fail to realize that our actions have consequences. We as humans have put millions of tons of trash in the oceans per year. This amount of trash is extremely hard for humans to comprehend. But through simple measures that the average person can take that a large number of this waste can be eliminated.

The largest amount of waste in the ocean is actually something you would not expect to amount to anything, plastic. We as people, and especially American’s use a lot of plastic items in our day to day lives. Every year humans put roughly eight million tons of plastic on our oceans. In order to eliminate this huge amount of waste, we can do a number of things. A few steps you can take in order to help eliminate this extremely large portion of our ocean waste. First of all, recycle the plastic products you do use, instead of putting that plastic bottle in the trash can you can put it in the recycling bin. Just simply taking all your old unwanted plastic products and recycling them so they can be reused and repurposed. Another way to reduce plastic waste is turning down drinking straws, next time you buy a drink turn down the straw and use your lips like they were intended.

Something else we can do to eliminate waste in our oceans is to try and make all our waste into the correct place. Try and not put your trash somewhere that could lead to it being blown all around the earth. Littering is more likely for your trash to wind up to detriment of wildlife. You can also buy products that can be recycled and that can be reused. This helps so much just by the fact that the trash is not just being blown all around the landscapes and going into our oceans. Even though you may hate the fact of throwing things away in the trash can it is still better than littering and cluttering up the earth.

One last thing that can really benefit our oceans and our general environment is to buy fewer items that are replaceable. We should be investing in things that will not break, but rather last a long time. And with this helpful tip that, if followed, could actually help our oceans and environment the most. We would have fewer things to worry about in our oceans and landfills. And most of the time our quality items can be repaired and do not necessarily have to be thrown away. When we purchase quality items not only are these companies generally more aware of the environment and also, through purchasing quality items we are less likely to purchase many more cheap items that get thrown away.

While there are many ways to help to reduce waste in general and in the oceans. I believe that these tips and information is some of the most helpful things to help our environment. And through these tips, our environment can be a relieved more and more of the waste of that it currently holds.

Works Cited

“Don't Buy This Jacket, Black Friday and the New York Times - The Cleanest Line.” History of Patagonia - A Company Created by Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia Action Works, 21 June 2017.

“Facts . About Plastic . Help.” Plastic Oceans Foundation.