Phillip Franco
Professor Cohen
Comp 2
25 February 2015
Paper 2
Imagine you’re on a boat and you are traveling across the blue water reflecting the sky like glass, and then suddenly you come across some trash floating in the water. Of course you do not pay much mind to it, but then as you continue to travel on the water more and more garbage is appearing and suddenly you realize that you are amongst tons of trash. The once beautiful water you were on is now infested with garbage of all sorts, ruining the view and experience. Fourteen billion pounds of trash are dumped into the ocean every year. Not only is the water effected but the animals that love in the ocean are effected as well. Over one million seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals are killed by pollution every year. In Daisy Dumas’ essay titled, “Landfill-on-Sea” she describes the trash build up in the Central Pacific Gyre. Lindsey Hoshaw also goes in on this subject in her article, “Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash” by touching on the reasons for the garbage patch in the ocean. Daisy Dumas hits on the subject of pollution and how it is effecting the sea along with the environment. Dumas explains how the use of plastic in the past 50 years has gone up 20 times in use (Dumas 3). The pollution percentage is rising and causing problems with our environment and our oceans, yet the use of plastic has still not come to a stop. Dumas believes that if nothing is done to fix the problem than things will only continue to get worse and worse. The ongoing problem with the pollution is that it is basically impossible to get rid of the problem. Pollution is everywhere and is committed by almost everyone. Dumas points out the fact that the pollution is not only harming the water and making what was beautiful now an eye sore, but also explaining how the animals are effected by the dumping of trash in the ocean. Majority of the trash in the ocean is plastic. In Dumas’ essay she displays in a list of facts that we “each” dump 185 pounds of plastic yearly (Dumas 3). The plastic is not only harmful due to how it can get tangled in the animals, but how the toxins within the plastic can affect them as well. “…they also act as floating islands and play a role in the colonisation of potentially poisonous new habitats.” (Dumas 4). Dumas concludes that the problem must be solved or else the spreading of the landfill on the sea will continue to spread. Lindsey Hoshaw addresses her concern for the island of trash in the Pacific Ocean in her article for the New York Times, “Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash”. One thing that Hoshaw points out, like Dumas, is the toxins in the plastic due to the plastic being dumped. “PCBs, DDT and other toxic chemicals cannot dissolve in water, but the plastic absorbs them like a sponge.” (Hoshaw 1). Within the article Hoshaw goes more into depth about what exactly the trash patch is consisted of. Hoshaw talks to a man who accidentally came across the garbage patch, Charles Moore, and believes there are “several” similar garbage patches to be discovered. Although Hoshaw does not pay much concern to what the plastic and other garbage is doing to the water, she is concerned with how many places