Plastic or Planet

Most seahorses weigh just half a pound, too light to keep from drifting in the oceans current. In the ocean the cling to seaweed or coral to anchor themselves in a place they call home. What happens though when home disappears?

Plastic litters the world’s oceans, collecting in piles the size of Texas. It chokes the life out of all that dares try to live in a habitat that once abounded with life. Coral quickly bleaches in the presence of the toxins leaking out of all of that degrading plastic. Seaweed can’t grow because the large masses of plastic limit sunlight exposure to the ocean floor.

So what happens to that small seahorse if that coral bleaches and can no longer support life? What happens when the seaweed no longer grows?

A Q-tip you once used to clean your ear is this seahorse’s new anchor against the currents. A Q-tip that you used and threw away miles away never imagining it would end up here in the ocean.

You didn’t intentionally pollute the ocean, it was never your goal. However something light, like a Q-tip, blows easily in the wind. A small gust could lift it from the top of a landfill pile. A bit of heavy rain could wash it into a river that would lead to the ocean.

You never intended to hurt that seahorse, but it is due to our negligence that marine life suffers more and more each day. We use plastic single use products daily that are make our lives more convenient but end those of organisms trying to live in the oceans.

Without change it’s only a matter of time before the ocean can no longer harbor life. It’s only a matter of time before a place once full to the brim with life is lost.

Plastic doesn’t hurt us, but it hurts a seahorse. For us once a Q-tip is thrown away it is gone for good, but for marine life it is there forever.

As a whole we have to realize that life in the oceans is worth more than plastic. We have to decide that a seahorse, or a sea turtle, or a dolphin, is worth more than a straw, or a plastic bag, or a Q-tip. We don’t have to deal with our plastic waste, but they do.

It’s either plastic or the planet and we don’t have much time to choose.