Reflection

Plastic pollution in the ocean is one of the greatest problems facing us today. Our oceans are one of the Earth’s biggest food sources, as well as its biggest natural resource. As a result, we get many of the things we use from the ocean, such as food, household items (sponges, diatomaceous cleaners, etc.), and other products. Their availability is dependent on the health and success of the biotic portion of the oceans.

We toss up to 14 billion tons of garbage into the ocean every year, most of which is plastic. Plastic does not decompose like most materials. Instead, it breaks up over long periods of time into smaller pieces. This is even worse for the environment because tiny pieces of plastic can enter the food chain when consumers mistake them as food. From this point, it can make its way up the food chain where it can continue to harm marine wildlife long-term.

I used the name of the popular television show Deadliest Catch to raise awareness of the dangers of plastics in the world’s oceans. I used a wide variety of plastics broken into small pieces and formed into a mosaic to illustrate this concept. Plastics like these can be “caught” in many different ways—they can wash up on the beach, get trapped in fishing nets, or be ingested by fish or other animals. Because of the damage that plastic inflicts on the marine environment, it is truly the Deadliest Catch.