Sadly the coasts of Florida are not what they used to be, mainly because of poor waste management practices that lead to ocean pollution. So all residents of Florida should give it a thought! There are local waste management companies such as Daytona Dumpster Rental HQ, that will help you with their junk disposal and recycling services, as well as give you advice about sustainability.
Definition: What is ocean pollution
Ocean pollution is one of the direct consequences of poor management of human waste and the excessive release of toxic products by industries. Fertilizers, pesticides, plastic bags, various objects abandoned on dry land will sooner or later find their way to the oceans via rivers, surface runoff, rain or winds.
For plastic waste alone, it is estimated that the equivalent of a truck is dumped into the seas every minute. Added to this are other forms of waste but also oil discharges from ships and fishing nets abandoned at sea which trap marine fauna much more often than not.
By promoting the ingestion of waste by animals, contact with harmful substances or the proliferation of harmful species, ocean pollution is the cause of the decline in marine biodiversity and the decline of some of the most essential ecosystems of the planet. A decline that could call into question the capacity of the global ocean to fulfill the functions that benefit us all.
Easily understand ocean pollution
It’s difficult to talk about the environment of Florida without addressing the issue of ocean pollution. What are the different causes of this pollution? Why is it important to protect marine ecosystems and, above all, what role do we have to play? This is what we will try to understand in this new subject.
The wealth of the oceans
First of all, you should know that the seas and oceans cover 70% of our planet and represent 97% of the available water. We will differentiate between a deeper ocean, bordered by several continents, and a sea, generally smaller but where we find greater marine diversity. We often talk about the world ocean since the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic and Antarctic are all connected to each other. On the other hand, except for closed seas, all seas in the world are open to the oceans or connected to them by a strait. What happens in one will necessarily impact the others. So here, we will talk about seas and oceans without necessarily making a distinction.
Quite simply, the oceans are an absolutely prodigious resource. They alone represent 90% of the Earth’s natural habitat and are home to tens of thousands of species, most of which have yet to be discovered. They also help regulate our climate, enable the transport of resources across the planet, and provide us with oxygen and food. Today, it is considered that half of the world’s populations depend on fishing products and that the ocean generates more than 30 million jobs.
Faced with all this wealth, for centuries, man has exploited and consumed as if marine resources were inexhaustible and dumped colossal quantities of waste into the oceans on a daily basis. And today, they are suffocating. Like many natural resources before them, the oceans have also reached their limits.
Some data on ocean pollution
Ocean pollution includes materials and harmful pollutants that end up in the seas, often via rivers, such as industrial or agricultural waste, chemicals, oil spills, plastic waste and other types of junk. Of all these facts, there is one constant: most of the pollution in our oceans begins on land and is caused by humans.
When it is not fishing which overexploits 30 to 40% of marine species, it is oil, nuclear or plastic pollution which undermines the good health of aquatic ecosystems. Whether floating, stranded or submerged, visible or invisible, waste is very poorly digested by the oceans and resists time even better than it does on Earth. Because no, waste does not simply disappear once it leaves our home. Nature will benefit from it much longer than us.
Every year, 8 million pieces of waste, mainly plastic, are dumped into the seas, to the point that for some time now we have been witnessing the formation of what has been designated as the 7th continent. Located in the North Pacific, between Japan and California, it is actually a floating mass composed of several thousand visible debris and plastic microparticles, extended over more than 3.5 million km².
The equivalent of eight times the territory of Florida. The area has since become one of the symbols of the catastrophic impact of our human activities on the oceans. The phenomenon is no longer exotic. A plastic island made up of billions of tons of waste was discovered off the coast of Corsica in 2019.
Using dumpster rentals to limit ocean pollution
Dumpster rentals offer a practical solution for managing waste more effectively, thereby possibly helping to limit ocean pollution. By providing an accessible and organized way to dispose of large amounts of waste in one go, dumpster rental services provide a way to contain and properly manage our trash. This reduces the likelihood of waste finding its way into rivers and oceans in Florida.
When communities and businesses utilize dumpster rentals, they can handle bulk waste from construction projects, local events, and neighborhood clean-up efforts more effectively. This might prevent illegal dumping and littering, which are major contributors to ocean pollution, as such waste will first end up in rivers and then in the ocean. Container rental services often include sorting and recycling options, further reducing the environmental impact by ensuring that all recyclable materials are not hauled to local landfills or the ocean.
By promoting the use of dumpster rentals, we can all encourage responsible waste disposal practices, ultimately protecting our marine ecosystems and contributing to a cleaner, healthier environment for future generations.