The European Parliament agreed to prohibit single-use plastic cutlery, cotton buds, straws, and stirrers as part of a comprehensive plan to combat plastic trash that pollutes beaches and oceans. Employees in the United Kingdom believe that by 2025, all plastic bottles should be made of 25% recycled material, and by 2029, 90% of them should be recycled. According to TheGuardian, Europeans generate more than 25 million tons of plastic waste each year, yet only about a third of it is collected for recycling. Plastic makes up more than 80% of ocean debris. Many laws have been enacted to prohibit the use of q-tips, cotton balls, and other wipes that block sewer pipes. These are significant advances in reducing litter in the water. It's the most important. The environmental impact is that it destroys marine life, and most of the items are non-biodegradable, such as plastic straws.
The pollutants

Plastic
The Sources

Human waste

Trash 

Litter

Domestic Waste
The Impacts

Marine wildlife such as seabirds, whales, fish and turtles mistake plastic waste for prey; most then die of starvation as their stomachs become filled with plastic.
Identify if Point or Non-Point Source Pollution

Point Source Pollution
Identify if Persistent or Biodegradable

Persistent
Identify if Acute or Chronic

Chronic
Identifiy if it is primary or secondary

Primary

A vast underground storage of methane had a broken pipe and there was a large methane leak near the happy-go-lucky community located in California. Nearly 2,200 families were evacuated from this place due to health problem reports. Methane is a greenhouse gas that contaminates the planet’s atmosphere and it leads to global warming. This underground storage produced a quarter of the state’s total emissions. This problem was resolved by drilling two relief wells and then inserting a mud-chemical cocktail.

Methane.

An underground storage of methane. 

Health problems on the people and more contamination on the atmosphere which leads to global warming.

Point source pollution.

Persistent.

Chronic.

Primary pollutant. 

Acid rain is affecting the USA lakes making them jelly which is when acid reduces the biological availability of calcium in lakes. Acid rain affects the food web. Scientists have known about acid rain for years but in 1979 it became a bigger problem that brought attention to the world. Acid rain can kill fish and aquatic life as well as it affects the soil in forests. The acid would stay for years in the ecosystem. 

 

 

Power plants are the biggest source of acid rain

 

The impacts include the death of aquatic life and terrestrial life. It lasts for many years in the environment

 

It's non-point pollution because it comes from many sources all around the country and world.

 

Persistent because it will no go away from the environment in many years, afetting the population and wildlife 

 

Its chronic because it toxic 

 

Its secondary because the chemicals will mix with water in the clouds and then it will rain 

This article discusses how polar bears' brains are being damaged by chemical pollution, specifically mad-made chemical (perfluorinated). This study demonstrates how polar bears' exposure to a large variety of chemicals causes stress and brain impairment. Different signal molecules and enzymes in the bears' brain are disrupted. It affects the polar bears' behavior, hormone balance, and capacity to live in addition to the brain. 

The pollutants: 

Chemical pollutants, man-made chemicals (perfluorinated)

The sources:
Industrial and commercial products

The impacts:

Polar bears’ brain damage, which it affects the whole food web.

Identify point or non-point:

Non-point source pollution

Identify persistent or biodegradable:

Persistent

Identify acute or chronic:

Chronic 

Identify primary or secondary: 

Secondary

pollutants: cigarette lighters, bottle caps, bottles, wrappers, and  straws or bags

sources: Human plastic waste

impacts: Our new estimate of floating microplastic is up to 37 times higher than previous estimates. That’s equivalent to the mass of more than 1,300 blue whales. But ocean plastics pose a threat to a wide variety of marine animals, and their risk is determined by the amount of debris an animal encounters

point or non point pollution: non point pollution

persistent or biodegradable: is a persistent pollutant

acute or chronic: acute

primary or secondary: primary

On May 20, 2015, BoyanSlat founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup announced to the world that they will create the first system that cleans up plastic pollution from the oceans. The system will span 2000 meters in the ocean by catching plastic before it gets to Tsushima Island.  After 5 years later The Ocean Cleanup plans to clean up half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. 

The pollutants: Plastic  

The Sources: All trash that ended up in the ocean. 

The Impacts: Each year one cubic meter of plastic pollution is being washed in Tsushima Island.                                                                     

Identify if Point or Non-Point Source Pollution: 
I think it's non-point source pollution since you don't know where all the plastic comes from.
  

Identify if Persistent or Biodegradable: I think it's persistent since all the plastic does not decompose really fast. 

Identify if Acute or Chronic: Chronic 

Identify if it is primary or secondary: Primary 

On Scotland's North Sea coast, researchers have found whales which have high levels of toxins present in all of their organs. Specifically, mercury and cadmium were the toxins found in all organs, including the brain. Researchers demonstrated that the rising levels of mercury in the Oceans can lead to high levels of stress in long~lived marine mammals. 

Pollutants ~

mercury and cadmium

The sources ~

 Industrial revolution and through gold mining activities

The impacts ~

Out of the 31 mammals which beached only 10 could be refloated and 21 - 16 females and five males - died. Also high levels of stress in long~lived marine mammals. 

Point pollutant ~

Gold mining activities

Persistent or Biodegradable ?

Persistent

Acute or Chronic?

Chronic

primary or secondary?

Primary

Researchers in England have found cocaine in shrimp, it was tested on a rural area and was discovered after taking samples from 15 different locations across Suffolk. The studies got to the conclusion that the cocaine appeared because of micro-pollutants in freshwater shrimps. With the cocaine drugs such as Ketamine, pesticides and pharmaceuticals were also found in the shrimp collected. 

Cocaine, Ketamine, pesticides and pharmaceuticals. 

The pollutants get to the environment because people use them and the everyday things that are used usually find a way into the environment. 

Drugs being inside an animal who are part of the food chain is a problem because it could get to the human system. 

Both can be argued because it can be pointed that waste water is responsible for taking the drugs and the pharmaceuticals into the ocean but it is also nonpoint because there is no specific source (company or exact place) that determines where the cocaine comes from. 

Persistent because even though cocaine is made by plants it stays on the shrimp tissues and can be dangerous to people that consume this shrimp. 

chronic, because of the different areas the cocaine was found and the difficulty that taking everything out of the ocean has. 

primary, because there are no more chemicals created. 

Bees are dying in record numbers, and the health of US honeybee hives continues to be dismal. In 2009, the agency commenced a long, slow process of reassessing them—not as a class, but rather one by one (there are five altogether).  Meanwhile, tens of millions of acres of farmland are treated with neonics each year, and the health of US honeybee hives continues to be dismal. The report card was so dire that the EPA "could potentially take action" to "restrict or limit the use" of the chemical by the end of this year, an agency spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.

 

Overall, bees taken from more polluted areas were considerably more likely to be flecked with harmful heavy metals such as arsenic and lead.

The government admits that an extremely common pesticide is at least partially to blame, which means that bees could be exposed to dangerous levels of imidacloprid, but data on how much of the pesticide appears in soybean pollen and nectar is "unavailable," according to Bayer and independent researchers. Oops. To be sure, imidacloprid has been approved for use by the EPA since the 1990s.
 
The Impacts

Lebanon is currently facing a trash crisis where people who don’t properly dispose of their trash are polluting the soil and also creating and spreading diseases that affect all citizens. Lebanon is currently facing the Beirut trash crisis and back in 2012, they faced a waste crisis among palestinian communities. There have been a lot of protests where citizens are asking the government for a clean-up because it is very difficult to live surrounded by all the trash and people can’t take it anymore. Even though efforts have been made by protestors, it is very difficult for the government to take action and this is what people will need to develop techniques to survive on their own. 

 
The pollutants:

Plastics, bottles, paper, wrappers and especially anything related to solid domestic waste that families consume. 

 
The Sources:

The food that has been wasted and improperly disposed comes from supermarkets and local shops because this is where the waste and plastic is manufactured and then wasted. Also, when this food is disposed of, it goes to landfills and the lack of management and care of these landfills leads to the trash spreading.

 
The Impacts:

There are a lot of people in Lebanon who are suffering from respiratory issues and also in some cases cholera. Also, the city is very messy and little by little people are starting to move out, this affects the economy as well. 

 
Identify if Point or Nonpoint Source Pollution:

It is a point source of pollution because it is evident where the trash comes from. The trash can be traced back to landfills and homes where people waste it. 

 
Identify if Persistent or Biodegradable:

It is persistent because trash in most cases is not biodegradable.

 
Identify if Acute or Chronic:

The waste crisis is chronic because it keeps evolving and advancing in time. Even though it has a direct and immediate impact, the damage increases chronically and by time. 

 
Identify if it is primary or secondary:

It is primary because the trash and more specifically plastics in some cases are oiled based which means that they can get attached and merged with other things which contaminate the environment.