Our oceans are beautiful – pristine, expansive, mysterious, teeming with diverse life under the surface. Except they’re not. Sadly, due to poor rubbish removal practices worldwide as well as personal irresponsibility, particularly in developed nations, our oceans are polluted to an extent that they never have been before. The entire marine ecosystem is at risk due to:

• Invasive organisms
• Industrial waste
• Agricultural waste
• Residential waste
• Commercial waste
• Chemical waste

Did You Know?

• Humans have turned our previously beautiful oceans into a dump site.
• Land-based activities account for 80% of total ocean pollution, including from untreated sewage, industrial runoff, and surface runoff.
• Plastic discarded inappropriately by humans represents the majority of ocean waste, and each piece of plastic will take more than one thousand years to biodegrade. There are more plastics in Earth’s oceans than there are stars in our galaxy, and each piece of plastic may circle the planet many hundreds of times.
• 70% of the human-generated waste that ends up in the ocean remains on the ocean floor. The rest floats on the surface or washes ashore as beach trash.
• There are six hundred million kilograms of rubbish in the ocean; most of these rubbish items enter the ocean via stormwater drains and also are directly disposed into the ocean off boats by humans.
• Only ten percent of litter in the ocean is a result of marine transportation such as pleasure boats, passenger liners, fishing boats and cargo ships. This includes plastic bottles, fishing nets that have been abandoned, and cigarette butts.
• Litter in the sea causes the death of more than one million sea birds each year, as well as three hundred thousand dolphins and porpoises, and hundreds of thousands of sea lions and other ocean mammals. These creatures become entangled in and choked by plastic waste and swallow non-digestible materials.
• Ocean biochemistry and growth is compromised by not only rubbish, solid waste, and oil, but also contaminants from heavy metals and acids released by industry, nuclear reactors, and drained sewage. Small food chain animals consume contaminants and are then eaten by larger animals and chemical concentrations within their bodies increases. Humans eat seafood and are detrimentally affected by these contaminants which result in damage to the immune system, cancers, and other health problems.
• Microplastics are creating a thin layer on the ocean surface in areas of a high concentration of marine debris.
• According to Clean Ocean Action, some of the strangest items collected that had washed up on beaches in 2017 included:

1. Pill bottles
2. Raw chicken
3. Inflatable mattress
4. Lawnmower
5. Used blood vials
6. Dentures
7. Fire extinguishers
8. Zucchini
9. Phone adaptor

Do your part to limit waste and keep rubbish out of our oceans. Call AA Adonis Rubbish Removals Sydney-wide today for a fast, convenient rubbish collection service that you know will be disposed of in an environmentally sustainable way.