Word Limit: 850

Chosen Topic: Littering, destruction of nature

Our oceans have become a dumping ground for our waste. It's not just the biodegradable paper, no, it's plastics, it's bottles, it's glass, it's dangerous chemicals that are killing our animals.

Animals aren't the only things dying here either, it goes much further than that.

There are reefs, places filled with millions and millions of fish, shellfish, plants, endangered species found only in those regions, and they are dying. As a result of the sheer amount of plastics in the water, plastics that suffocate these miraculous places, squeeze the life out of these poor sea creatures and their habitats  within mere years. What have these animals ever done to you? What have they done to deserve such horrible, horrible treatment from us?

Do we really want a future with oceans made entirely of litter? Whole islands of it, floating across the world, leaving a trail of death in its wake? Does that sound like a good future to you?

What if I told you that that, something that sounds only half realistic, is already a reality?

There are islands of trash, islands held together by rope thrown from fishing boats and littered with the corpses of the helpless creatures that know no better, that don't think to swim away, that don't understand what is going on.

These islands; they are death traps. They capture and suffocate countless marine animals, and nothing is being done about them either, nothing at all. We need to put a stop to this nonsense, and do something about this, before too much damage has been done, before it is too late to do anything at all.

This is an issue that has been building over the last few decades, growing as our consumption of non-biodegradable items are, completely unheeded, uncontrolled, and becoming unstoppable.

It doesn't seem like anything is going to change anytime soon, either.

Sure, there are plastic bag charges in some countries, plastic straws are being banned in some restaurants and cafes in an attempt to limit or use of plastics, but it is not enough, it's nowhere near enough to prevent the problems.

Of the 260 million tonnes of plastic the world produces annually, 10 percent ends up in the ocean.

Think of that as 26 million plastic bags. 26 million plastic bottles swallowed by sea turtles who mistake them for jellyfish. It's a huge number, and, as more advancements are made, as our world becomes more and more plastic, it will only increase further.

You should stop, think before you decide to litter. Which marine animal is going to die because of you? How is this going to impact your life, and the lives of future generations to come? Do you really have to drop this waste here, can you not make it to the next bin?

We are all to blame, in some way shape of form. No one is innocent, we've all littered at some point, and now? It needs to stop. There is no time for this to get worse, the oceans are becoming acidic, they are becoming inhospitable for any life at all, let alone that of the creatures that call it home.

Currently, it is estimated that there is around 100 million tonnes of plastic within our waters, and that number is continuing to grow. It's not all dumped straight into the oceans, some of the waste comes from rivers, from lakes, streams, where people have had picnics, dropped crisp packets into the water rather than a rubbish bin. Is it really that hard to put something in the bin, rather than discarding it at your feet?

And, to make matters worse, 100 million marine animals are killed each year as a result. This is not a small issue, this is a crisis.

This could be catastrophic to us all.

Why, you may ask? Because, every time an animal is killed there will be less food to eat. We are killing off one of our largest food sources. Do you want your children, our future generations, to never taste something from the ocean? To hear about seals, dolphins, manatees only in history books?

All water sources lead into the ocean, they all filter into it in some way, and so if it becomes polluted, if it becomes acidic from the amount of waste held within it, we will all suffer the consequences.

How long do you think people would last without water? How long would we last if we could only drink with water filters? That could be our imminent future, that could be what we have to look forwards to, all because we did nothing to stop this, all because there were no measures put in place, there were no effective precautions taken to stop the destruction of the ocean itself.

This is why the plastic straw restrictions, the plastic bag charge, is not enough, because they alone make up only a small amount of our overall waste, we aren't tackling the real problem.

We are moving too slowly, we aren't making progress quickly enough to save ourselves.