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Hey guys this is the paper so far. Check it over and make changes in a color and then repost here so we can keep a live rework of this going. <3 Rochelle

A frigid salty breeze blew through little Sarah’s pigtails, fluttering about behind her with velvet hair ribbons. The sand was still cool, her small feet sinking into the soft pliable surface as she held tight to the pale she had found in the street. Left behind by some other family, the beaten plastic bucket now served as a shoe carrier. Spinning like a top and giggling all the way, little Sarah was quickly halted by a sharp pain. Pulling her little foot up to examine it with tears in her eyes and a quivering lip, she discovers that a large shard of sharp plastic had sliced her soft heel. Standing quickly to avoid the creeping roll of the tide she squinted with a frown at all of the litter that had been left behind. Instead of playing in the waves, she slowly picked up each piece of discarded trash placing it in the recycle container not five feet from where the rubbish lay. Arriving in a bit of disarray, the little girl’s mom had been stalled at the car gathering up her beach towels, sunglasses and radio. Watching her daughter she laughed softly, unaware of the harm that had befallen her. “Sarah you can’t clean the entire beach, so there is no use trying.” Tossing the bottle into the can, Sarah turned to watch a small otter swirl about in the break attempting to remove a plastic bag that had been twisted over its head. Rushing over she pulled the bag loose, allowing the small wide eyed creature to dash back into the sea. Turning to her mother the little girl hugged her leg, “No mommy, I can’t clean it all but what I do clean helps.” Humans are the only beings on this planet that create items that cannot be reclaimed by the environment. Having processed plastics for over fifty years, humans have filled the Earth with a material that will never erode. We find plastic bags stick to chain link fences, bottles in our beaches and forests and trash strewn about our neighborhoods. Making the problem we had left for future generations a problem that our generation must help clean up. With our habits being quite lazy, humans have created a problem that seems as if it is too big to tackle. With a trash piled up in massive landfills and strewn out across the oceans, picking up fifty years worth of plastic seems impossible. Yet as we can see, (the word threw.. needs to be through.Luz)threw the eyes of Sarah every little bit helps. Less than one percent of plastics produced will end up being recycled. The word recycle when it comes to plastic products is not what it seems. Plastics become what is known as Nurdle. A broken down form of a larger plastic that is small and pellet in appearance. Much like glass shards in the ocean, the constant battering of the material reduces the size of these pieces. Unlike like natural materials, nurdle never fully (goes. Luz)go away. Taking samples from the ocean waters off the coast of California, scientists have found that nurdle is ever prevalent in not only our waters but the foods we eat from the ocean. We are in effect eating the plastic bottles we thought were recycled. The US produces 60 billion pounds of this waste plastic a year. With 90 percent of the trash found on beaches being nurdle, (we instead of was. Luz)was can easily see the effect it is having on our ecosystems. Ventura is a unique place because it contains within its borders the United States own micro ecosystem. This system is more commonly called the Channel Islands. The islands, since the Spanish first set foot on them(i think u need a.. THEY. Luz) have been an echo of ecological information in regards to human manipulation. The effect of 5.4 million tons of waste dumped yearly into our oceans quickly effects this fragile environment. Sea animals not only strangle themselves in waste, but swallow it as well. More and more fishermen are finding that fish have swallowed debris, making them ill and then transmitting sickness to other wildlife. This in turn affects humans who then consume these ill fish. Methyl mercury, being one of the most well known contaminates in our oceans. This chemical, builds up in fish usually predatory and then is consumed by humans. These unsafe levels can cause major health problems, and even death. Chemical and plastic contamination has been affecting the Channel Islands over the years. DDT a widely used chemical in crop dusting was found to not only harm animal life but humans as well. On the Channel Islands, the effects of these crop dusting chemicals severely killed off the native bald eagle population. The Chemical, known for thinning shells of avians, drastically reduced the number of hatchings compared to live adults. Thus causing a human effect on the micro environment.

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