Over the past few years, our planet’s degradation has reached an alarmingly high level. We have destroyed lands, forests, the air we breathe every day, and finally, the oceans. Large amounts of waste, residues from factories, clothes, and cans are dumped into the oceans. For some people, they seem to be some extremely large and efficient bins. But they are not, and such activities have done an incredible damage to the environment.

A research done by the Ocean Conservancy has shown that small things that may appear insignificant, such as cigarettes, are at the top of the global trash heap. They even outnumbered bags, plastic bottles, and cans. All that waste accumulates on our planet’s shorelines or waterways, and it destroys natural habitats, it contaminates the water, basically it annihilates the ecosystem. To help you make an idea regarding the dimensions of the issue, the Ocean Conservancy group estimated that all the butts picked up in the last 26 years could be used to make a construction as big as the Empire State Building.

Let us listen to the conservation biologist Nicholas Mallos, and become more aware of our planet’s environmental issues. He stated that people’s actions of throwing trash into the ocean can cause serious consequences. Apart from damaging the marine life, we are permanently destroying the chances of having a rich flora and fauna.

Also, the Ocean Conservancy numbers come from an annual effort known as Coastal Cleanup. It fist took place in Texas in 1986 and has grown constantly. It now gathers 600,000 volunteers from 96 different countries and is one of the greatest movements in the world. Also, it is supported by the government agencies, National Geographic and several big, private companies, such as ABC News, Coca-Cola and The Walt Disney.

In 2011, the Ocean Conservancy volunteers gathered enough bottles and cans to fetch $45,489.14 if recycled. Moreover, the bottles were enough to make 266,997 clothing pieces, 940,277 containers for food, 155 toilet seats, nearly 10,000 fireworks and about 195 cell phones. As trash has a huge impact on the ecosystem, Mallos said that it is unavoidable to stop it from getting into the ocean. Still, we can do our best to recycle and not make our beaches a public bin.

Additionally, the issue may be intensified if the tsunami that happened in 2011 in Japan gets to the shores of North America. The University of Hawaii guesses that there are over 2 million tons of wastes in the oceans. A couple of days ago, a fishing vessel was hovering close to the coast of British Columbia. It was thought to be coming from Hokkaido. According to Mallos, such things may frequently be seen on the coast, because of debris. However, there is still uncertain how large are the quantities of waste, how are they going to affect us, and what can we do to reduce them.

For now, there aren’t many answers for our questions, but there is one thing we can do. From now on, start thinking more about the nature and the environment, especially before dumping your waste into the ocean.