Billions+of+Plastic+Pieces+Litter+Coral+in+Asia+and+Australlia

[|Billions of Plastic Pieces Litter Coral in Asia and Australia] Source: New York Times Date Published: January 25th 2018 Date Accessed: January 25th 2018 This is a picture of some of the pollution found in coral reefs (Source: Michael O'Neill/Science Source) __**Summary:**__

The article is about the growing pollution of coral reefs in Asia and Australia. Coral biologist Joleah Lamb, who is a professor at Cornell, and a team, assembled a database of plastic pollution for 159 reefs that are in Australia, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Thailand. The amount of plastic pollution was incredibly large, and by using past research and their observations they estimate that there were 11.1 billion pieces of plastic that are larger than 5 centimeters. It is said in the article that if they lined up all the pieces together, they could reach around the world 14 times. The effect of the pollution was also evident in the coral reefs, and it is said that a coral reef that was polluted was 20 times more likely to be polluted than a reef that was clean, and ninety percent of reefs that were polluted with plastic had signs of disease. According to the researchers, pollution changes a coral reefs chance of disease from 4% to 89%. The plastic can attract bacteria, block light and make them susceptible to a dark loving disease called the black band, and can wound them and make them susceptible to infection. Their research also showed that common coral diseases were encouraged by the pollution. It is stated in the article that reefs near countries such as Australia, which try to limit plastic from entering the ocean, had noticeably less pollution then countries such as Indonesia who have a poor infrastructure for managing plastics entering the ocean and have heavily polluted coral reefs.

__**How this relates to the course:**__

The main topic of this article is the harmful effect of pollution on coral reefs, "Furthermore, when the researchers found plastic on coral, about 90 percent of the time they saw clear signs of disease." We have studied coral reefs and the fact that they are being degraded during the class, "Despite their ecological importance, coral reefs are disappearing and being degraded at an alarming rate. They are vulnerable to damage because they grow slowly, and are easily disrupted, and thrive only in clear, warm, and fair shallow water of constant high salinity."(Miller 187) "Marine biologists estimate that humans have directly or indirectly caused the death of 10% of the world's coral reefs." (Miller 194) Coral reefs relate to the article because the article is about how the pollution is harming coral reefs and making them susceptible to disease.

__**Opinion:**__

I think this is very bad and needs to be changed soon. Coral reefs are a very important part of our ecosystem and have many diverse organisms so this pollution is harming many different organisms and will harm our world's biodiversity. I think the governments of countries such as Indonesia, which are allowing a lot of the plastic pollution into coral reefs, need to make reforms and try to prevent the pollution. Lamb was said to have only seen scraps of plastic while researching in the Great Barrier Reef, which is off the coast of Australia and takes much more action in preventing pollution, but while researching near Asia she was surprised to see much more pollution and thinks such as diapers, and chairs polluting the coral reefs. This shows how much worse it is in Asia and how government action in Australia can affect the pollution so much.

__**Environmental Law:**__

This article relates to the Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act of 1987, this law prohibits the dumping of plastics in all U.S waters. This relates to the article because the article is about plastic that goes into the ocean and harms coral reefs.