The document provides an overview of plastic pollution in oceans, highlighting the sources, magnitudes, and impacts of plastic use, particularly on marine life. It emphasizes the need for awareness and actions such as reducing, reusing, and recycling to mitigate damage caused by plastics. The document also outlines the degradation time for various plastic products and suggests practical solutions to minimize plastic use.

1. 1
PLASTIC POLLUTION
IN OCEAN

2. 2
Overview
•Introduction on plastics
•Magnitude of the plastics
•Sources
•Impacts
•Solutions/mitigation

3. 3
Lesson Objectives
•Students are able to develop understanding about the
negative impact caused by the use of plastics,
particularly in oceans.
•Students are able to develop ideas about how we can
minimize the damage caused by plastics in oceans.

4. 4
What is plastic?
•Plastics are synthetic material
•Usually made from oil or natural gas
•Plastics are made by linking thousands of
monomers(like bisphenol-A (BPA) and vinyl chloride, are
harmful and toxic).
•The main types are :
• Polyethylene(bottles,jars,bags,cups)
• Polystyrene(cups,pellets)
• Polypropylene(bottlecaps,drinkingstraws)
• PVC(shoes,pipes,furniture)

5. 5
Magnitude of problem increasing
• Rapid and substantial increase in anthropogenic debris on the ocean surface and
beaches over recent decades.
• Global plastic production has increased from 5million tons to over 250 million tons
current.
• Because
• Inexpensive
• Light weight
• Strong
• Durable
• Easy to use
• About 3 metric tones of plastic is estimated to be entering
the oceans every 15sec.

6. 6
We use over 1 million
plastic bags every
minute

7. 7
How long can plastic take to degrade?
• Plastic bag : 20 years
• Plastic bottles : 450 years
• Plastic cup : 50 years
• Food wrapper : 300 years
• Fishing line : 600 years

8. 8
Main sources
•Approximately 80% comes from land-based
sources:
• Litter(pedestrians, motorists, beach visitors)
• Industrial discharges(pellets and powders)
• Garbage management(containers, trucks, landfills)

9. 9
•Approximately 20% comes from ocean-based
sources:
• Commercial fishing vessels
• Cargo ships (discharge of containers and garbage)
• Pleasure cruise ships

10. 10
Problems for people
•Looks dirty
•Decreases tourism value
•Pollutes swimming areas
•Can cause harm & injury
to people

11. 11
Wildlife issues
• Entanglement
• Ingestion
• Chemicals
• Invasive species
• Coral reefs can be harmed
• Ghost fishing
•Over 1 000 000 sea birds, 100 000 marine mammals
and 1000s of turtles are killed by plastic every year.

12. 12
Entanglement

13. 13
Impacts of Fishing Gear

14. 14
Ingestion

15. World Oceans Day 2015
April 2010-Puget Sound-California Grey Whale Stomach
contents: pants and golf ball, more than 20 plastic bags, small
towels, duct tape and surgical gloves

16. 16
Spread of invasive species

17. 17
Solutions
•Reduce
• The best thing we can do is use less plastic! If we don’t use it,
there’s no way it can end up in our oceans.
• No excuse for single use
• Take your own bag to the supermarket
• Grow your own vegetables & fruit
• Say no to straws
• Use reusable cloth diapers instead of plastic one

18. 18
Reuse
•Try to use items more than once.
•Bottles drinking water
•Bottles eco bricks
•Bottles plant holders
•Plastic boxes (e.g. ice cream containers) as lunch boxes
•Be creative & use your imagination

19. 19
Recycle
• rubbish new useful products.
• Paper, plastics, glass, metal and textiles can all be recycled.
•Others
• Put in the dustbin
• Compost

20. 20

21. 21
The massive ocean cleaning system is planned
to be launched in 2016.

22. 22
SAVE
OCEANS
&
MARINE
LIFE

23. 23
Thank you