Plastics | Incredible Oceans | FuseSchool

CREDITS Animation & Design: Chloe Adams, Jean-Pierre Louw, Joshua thomas Narration: Russel Arnott Script: Incredible Oceans Click here to see more videos: https://alugha.com/FuseSchool Hi My name is Russell Arnott I'm a marine biologist at Bath University and I'm here today to talk a little bit about plastic. plastic is an amazing substance it can be used to make; clothing, food, packaging, car parts and even houses. It's super cheap to make and it's virtually indestructible. But this is also the problem with plastic or rather. how we as humans are choosing to use plastic, plastics can take a long time to break down naturally or biodegrade. That plastic bottle you just used will be around for at least another four hundred years. So, if Shakespeare had a water bottle, we would still be able to use it today. And that potato chip container you just ate out of will hang around for as long as the pyramids have already been here. In fact, almost every piece of plastic we ever made is still here with us somewhere. Unfortunately, a good chunk of the plastic we make ends up in our oceans and because plastic takes so long to break down it's just building up and up and up. Scientists have calculated that around twelve million tons of plastic is added to our ocean every year. So, each year another twelve million tons of plastic is added circular ocean currents called gyres, collect up this plastic and bring it together in giant floating island or garbage patches some of which are as big as the United States of America. These pieces of floating plastic get eaten by; turtles, whales, dolphins, seals, sea birds and other marine animals where they block up their stomachs. Sunlight and waves cause the big chunks of plastic to get broken down into smaller pieces called microplastics. These micro plastics are then eaten by tiny plankton and work their way up the food chain into bigger and bigger animals and now humans have started eating pieces of plastic inside the fish that we catch. So, what can you do to reduce your plastic footprint? Just think about the three R.'s reduces, reuse and recycle. of plastic that you use from day to day. The easiest way to do this is to shop your local greengrocer and take your own bags with you which you can reuse again and again. Secondly if you have to use plastic think about whether you can reuse it, for example if you buy a bottle of water you can take that plastic bottle of water and refill it again and again and again. Finally, if you are going to use plastic think about whether you can recycle it. Some plastics aren't recyclable but loads of them are but remember this isn't going to be a solution for ever because there's a limit to how many times we can recycle different types of plastics. I've got to say one of my favourite ways to reduce ocean plastic is to do a two-minute beach clean. As the name suggests this involves going down to the beach timing yourself and spending two minutes picking up any litter that you can find. How much little can you prevent getting into our oceans? VISIT us at www.fuseschool.org, where all of our videos are carefully organised into topics and specific orders, and to see what else we have on offer. Comment, like and share with other learners. You can both ask and answer questions, and teachers will get back to you. These videos can be used in a flipped classroom model or as a revision aid. Twitter: https://twitter.com/fuseSchool Access a deeper Learning Experience in the FuseSchool platform and app: www.fuseschool.org This Open Educational Resource is free of charge, under a Creative Commons License: Attribution-NonCommercial CC BY-NC ( View License Deed: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ). You are allowed to download the video for nonprofit, educational use. If you would like to modify the video, please contact us: info@fuseschool.org

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