Why plastic pollution is a problem for our coastlines - Explanation

LI: To collaboratively structure and write an explanation.

Why plastic pollution is a problem for our coastlines?

Did you know, each year over 1 million marine mammals are suffering due to the plastic we are wasting? This is not okay! These marine mammals have been suffering from plastic, whether they mistake plastic for food, or even get captured in it, which makes them not able to digest. Plastic has a large effect towards our marine mammals. Plastic is a large, serious issue in our environment! Would you like it if your favourite beach was filled with plastic?

According to ecotricity, scientists have estimated that about 8 million tonnes of plastic have ended up in our oceans every year. The number of plastic waste ending up in oceans could decrease up to a higher number, unless we do something about it! The majority of plastic that lies on the ground ends up in drains, which then leads to our oceans, lakes and rivers. There are New Zealanders out there who have access to facilities for plastic, but why aren’t we doing any better for our environment?

Did you know that plastic takes about 1,000 years just to biodegrade! Plastic doesn’t actually fully degrade, it only disintegrates into smaller particles. About 252,000 tons of plastic are also headed into our landfills every year. A project “Love Your Coast” is one of the projects that are acting now to help have a healthier and cleaner future. Love Your Coast has organised groups of people from around New Zealand to help clean up our oceans and beaches, so our next few generations could be better.

We should act now, so we could have a cleaner future and environment. You could save the lives of marine mammals, by picking up at least a few pieces of rubbish!

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This week for our writing we wrote an explanation about plastic pollution. Plastic pollution in and around our waterways has become a real problem. Each year the rubbish when it drops it goes down into the drain and heads to the rivers, but it goes into the beaches, and the marine mammals eat it.