Virtual Poster Session: Global Studies & Maritime Affairs Senior Thesis 2020

The ocean covers more than seventy percent of the earth’s surface. It is one of the most valuable natural resources as it provides food in the forms of fish and shellfish, a mode of transportation for both shipping and travel purposes and it removes carbon from the atmosphere while also providing oxygen. Sadly, humans around the world have become too careless and our selfish actions of not treating the ocean as a living organism have now created huge threats to the ocean and its ecosystem. The production of plastic has continued to grow at an exponential rate since its boom in the 1950s, and a percentage of these plastics end up floating on the ocean’s surface or sinking to the ocean floor. These plastics have created five garbage gyres in the world’s oceans equaling nearly eighty thousand tons of marine debris, with the biggest gyre being the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This marine debris is resulting in environmental harm to surrounding animals and the ocean as a whole. Without a realistic plan to mitigate this issue, our oceans will soon be filled with more plastic than marine life.