Featured Image Credit:Shawn M Miller
By Emily Persico
Since 1975, global plastic production has increased by a whopping 620 percent, and a crazy amount of that plastic is ending up in our oceans—Approximately 19 billion pounds annually according to recent estimates. From gigantic whales to tiny mussels, plastic is making its way into the digestive tracks and threatening the very existence of 600 wildlife species globally.
These numbers are obviously quite distressing, but what can we do? Don’t litter, that’s one. Use less plastic? Sure. But first, in the face of despair, let’s share a good laugh by looking at how sea creatures are coping with this astronomical problem.
- Hello?? HELLO?! I know why you’re ignoring my call hoo-mansss. Your trash island is floating into my shrinking yard, and I’ve had enough! The polar bears have had enough. Woefully yours, PB
- Oh, bear, stop you’re whining. That plastic is not a telephone; it was clearly thrown to build my throne. Now hop on! Or… Better yet, stay very far gone. I’m the pollution swan.
- The pollution swan isn’t the only one who fell for the trap. This little hermit crab hails from Cuba, and I make my home out of a toothpaste cap.
- Okay, I admit, I may have gotten a little lost in this one. A bit of a fashion statement… Er… Netting… I thought that was still in? Oh, well, will you help me get out of it now? I can’t move. I’m embarrassed… I think I’ll sit this one out.
- We are the sea: a barnacle, a bryozoan, an anemone. They call us “the plastisphere.” We once relied on a passing whale or floating tree, but now we travel on plastic bits—hitch a ride and look, we’re free!
Hem, hem, let’s let the humans talk. It’s our turn.
To the polar bear: drop the phone
Pollution swan, that is not a throne
Hermit crab, please, just find a new home
To the turtle: leave that dress alone—
And the plastisphere: well, we should’ve known.
“We’re being overwhelmed by our waste,” said environmental engineer Jenna Jambeck. Jamback is the researcher who came up with that number in the beginning – 19 billion pounds of plastic pollution per year. According to Jambeck, this number is going to double by 2025 “unless something is done, swiftly and at a global scale, to stem the tide of garbage.”
That’s language pulled directly from Huffington Post’s story “The Oceans Are Drowning in Plastic – And No One’s Paying Attention.” Read more here.