Flor's Life Below Water Exploration by Castro, Flor

Goal #14 Life below Water

s2266260 — 2025-08-19 13:53:10 UTC

I love anything that includes marine life. This interests me because I love marine animals and I would love to learn more about their environment and what their life is like.

Reducing Marine Pollution

s2266260 — 2025-08-20 14:33:08 UTC

One fact on the SDG website that caught my attention was that by 2025, they wanted to prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution.

Marine pollution around the world

s2266260 — 2025-08-20 14:48:51 UTC

Hawaii has a large amount of cesspools, which are leaking sewage into the coastal waters, contributing to bacteria contamination.
A substantial amount of plastic pollution is being spread around the oceans across the world, including derelict fishing gear, accumulates on beaches and in the ocean endangering marine life through entanglement and ingestion.

What is marine pollution?

s2266260 — 2025-08-20 15:10:38 UTC

The contamination of the ocean and its ecosystems with harmful substances or objects. Which include:

Plastics
Chemicals
Garbage
Oil spills
Gases
Heavy metals
Nutrients
These contaminations damage coral reefs and other habitats, poison marine life, cause algal blooms that deplete oxygen levels, spread diseases and contaminate seafod and drinking water.

Marine pollution mapping

s2266260 — 2025-08-20 15:49:02 UTC

Marine pollution mapping includes various techniques to visualize and analyze the distribution of pollutants in the ocean.

These methods include:

Satellite imagery
Remote sensing
ADIS
Citizen science initiatives

Organizations involved in marine pollution mapping:

s2266260 — 2025-08-20 17:15:27 UTC

NCEI: They provide data and and tools for mapping marine microplastics.
The nature Conservancy: They have developed a marine mapping tool to support marine spatial planning.
EMOD Network: They are a European initiative that provides marine data and information, including data on marine litter.

The growing issue of plastic pollution

s2266260 — 2025-08-21 01:40:33 UTC

I learned all the effects from plastic pollution and how it damages the ocean and marine life. I also learned all of the steps that we can take to break the cycle of us throwing trash on the roads or around oceans/beaches in order to prevent from all of the trash landing in the ocean and damaging animals, plants and even us humans.

Top 5 places where oceans are most affected

s2266260 — 2025-08-21 13:53:56 UTC

The top 5 areas that are most affected by ocean pollutants are:

North Pacific ocean
Indian ocean
North Atlantic ocean
South Atlantic ocean
South Pacific ocean
These areas are heavily impacted by plastic pollution, chemical runoff, and other forms of waste, with the Pacific Ocean holding a significant portion of the world's plastic debris

North Pacific Ocean

s2266260 — 2025-08-21 14:13:59 UTC

This Region, specifically the great Pacific garbage patch, is notorious for its high concentration of plastic debris, with an estimated 2 trillion pieces circulating within the north Pacific Gyre.

Indian Ocean

s2266260 — 2025-08-21 17:59:30 UTC

This ocean is the second most polluted in terms of plastic particle count. This area has an elevated level of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and many more different debris.

North Atlantic Ocean

s2266260 — 2025-08-21 18:19:32 UTC

The north Atlantic ocean is polluted with 27 million tonnes of nanoplastics. It also contains a substantial amount of plastic pollution and is affected by various pollutants from land-based sources.

South Atlantic Ocean

s2266260 — 2025-08-21 18:42:46 UTC

The south Atlantic ocean faces significant pollution challenges, particularly with plastic debris. This plastic, originating from various sources like landfills, shipping and coastal storms is found throughout the water column and even in remote island locations.

South Pacific Ocean

s2266260 — 2025-08-21 18:50:04 UTC

The south Pacific ocean contains something called the 'garbage patch', which consists mainly of microbeads, tiny abrasives less than 5 micrometers in size usually found in certain personal hygiene products and microscopic fibers from washing clothes.

How to help these places

s2266260 — 2025-08-21 19:56:43 UTC

We can help our oceans by not throwing our trash outside and if we see any to pick it up and throw it away in its correct trash bin. We can also volunteer at many organizations who help with keeping our oceans clean and healthy.

North Pacific Garbage Patch

s2266260 — 2025-08-22 14:13:51 UTC

The north Pacific garbage patch is very big and has a lot of composition. Studies also investigate the patch's dynamic nature, influenced by ocean currents, and identify major sources of pollution, particularly lost fishing gear from industrialized nations.

Clean Up Goals

s2266260 — 2025-08-22 19:25:45 UTC

This is a great organization is very helpful because it gives us information on ways that we can help clean up the garbage patch. Some goals they have are:

successfully removing 90% of floating plastic by 2040.
Develop and scale technology
Minimize environmental harm

Issues

s2266260 — 2025-08-22 19:36:03 UTC

The main issue is that even when there are many organizations people don't want to join them when helping clean up the oceans and its surroundings and because of this the garbage patch causes harm to marine life and can cause them to be extinct.

Potential Solutions

s2266260 — 2025-08-24 22:09:44 UTC

Some things that we can do to help clean the garbage patch are:

Preventing new plastic from entering the ocean through waste reduction
Recycling
Clean up existing plastic
Re-purpose collected plastic.

Results

s2266260 — 2025-08-25 17:05:08 UTC

The results of cleaning the garbage patch is that marine, land, and human life will be improved.

Maine life: Less animals will become extinct and less animals will be harmed and live happy lives.
Land life: Less animals are in danger and are able to live a happy life
Human life: Less diseases are spread and people are able to live a long and healthy life.

I want to research marine pollution which must be addressed to reach SDG goal #14 life below Water. I will focus on the North Pacific Ocean and Re-purposing collected plastic.

s2266260 — 2025-08-28 14:00:51 UTC

How does acidification from the garbage patch affect the north Pacific Ocean?

s2266260 — 2025-08-28 14:01:59 UTC

What is the garbage patch's impact on the north Pacific Ocean regarding microplastics?

s2266260 — 2025-08-28 14:02:50 UTC

How can re-purposing plastics impact the north Pacific Ocean?

s2266260 — 2025-08-28 14:08:47 UTC

s2266260 — 2025-09-03 22:42:22 UTC

This article explains how The Ocean Cleanup, a foundation developing advanced technologies to rid the oceans of plastic, has just presented the initial findings of its Aerial Expedition.