Marine pollution also hits our belly

I am not kidding, am serious. Marine pollution does hit our belly. Yeah you are right it disturbs our digestive system if we eat sea food mainly fish, prawns, shrimps and lobsters caught from the polluted salt water. Therefore, this type of pollution should not be treated simply as an issue of the fish folk. It is our issue because whatever type of pollution exists in this world, we the human beings have to suffer first and after that our fragile environment and the ecosystem receive hit.

What is marine pollution?

Marine pollution means any type of contamination in all types of slat water including that of sea and ocean owing to release of various types of solid, liquid and even gaseous matter from identifiable sources like civic waste, industrial effluent, oil spill from ships or unidentifiable sources like dust and plastic particles with the wind pressure etc.

Marine pollution like air pollution does not know any kind of the borders and can easily transmit its harmful effects from one region to another region. Therefore, it is called a mysterious killer which born in one place and plays havoc miles away from there.

Sources of marine pollution

Obviously there are two sources of marine pollution. One is the point source and other one is the nonpoint source.

Point source of marine pollution: We should not be happy over the fact that seventy percent marine environment is being polluted by point source pollution because despite their being pointed out they can’t be curbed or quashed in any region of the world thanks to the lackluster green laws and their lethargic implementation.

Key point sources of marine pollution are industrial effluent if not treated before its release into the sea water, civic waster water if directly falls into the sea without being treated, oil spills from ships and owing to accidents of boats and ships, domestic sewage if released into the salt water as if it would vanish into the sea and agricultural run-off flows from the coastal areas if we let it move directly into the salt water treasure.  

Nonpoint sources: The nonpoint sources of marine pollution are mainly dust and plastic particles which mix into the sea and ocean water with the pressure of wind. Similarly persistent organic polluted mostly comprises of pesticides is also another form of such source which is not identifiable and mixes into the sea and ocean with atmospheric pressures. 

Effects of marine pollution

Effects of marine pollution are more than many because most of them can’t be properly evaluated because it is very difficult to do survey of deep sea and ocean to assess the losses to the marine environment owing to its degradation.

Its worst victim is obviously marine life including animals and plants. Both the kinds of the living beings get affected by it very slowly because most of its negative effects are offset by permanent flow of sea water which provides strong resistance power to marine life to combat the harms of pollution.

The entire botanical marine life receives heavy hit owing to disorder in marine environment because its natural composition gets totally disturbed and not any of its component plays its natural role. The effects on marine animals indirectly make a hit on us - the human beings - when we eat the fish and other sea food.

How to control marine pollution

Marine pollution control is in our hand. How? Majority of the pollutants in marine environment moves from the land. It means our seas and oceans are mostly polluted because of land based polluting activities. So we can contain the point sources of marine pollution if we are serious to save our marine treasures.

• Industrial effluent, domestic sewage and civic wastewater must be treated if it is to be dumped into the sea and violators must be dealt with iron hands.
• Littering into the sea while walking or enjoying along the beach must be declared a punishable crime all across the world.
• The ships which spill oil in sea must be heavily fined to offset their effects through various mitigation measures.

One point is clear because of our negligence we are paying the heavy price of every type of the pollution in shape of our poor health and lesser life span. Here by we and us means the human beings.  God bless all of us.