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Why Plastic Hurts Sea Life
Why Plastic Hurts Sea Life
25 Jul, 2026
Level: Intermediate
Total vocabularies: 116
Minutes to read: 2
Topic: The Ocean
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Every year, millions of tons of plastic enter the ocean .
This plastic causes serious harm to sea life around the world.
Plastic bags, bottles, and nets drift through the water for hundreds of years.
A close-up underwater photograph of a sea turtle with its mouth open near a translucent floating plastic bag that resembles a jellyfish in the blue ocean
Sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and eat them.
When animals eat plastic , it fills their stomachs and they stop eating real food.
Many seabirds feed plastic pieces to their chicks by mistake .
Whales and dolphins also swallow large amounts of plastic waste.
An underwater scene showing a tangled green fishing net drifting in the ocean with a seal caught in its mesh, sunlight filtering down from above
Fishing nets that are lost or thrown away trap fish, seals, and sea turtles.
These animals cannot escape and often die from the entanglement .
Over time, plastic breaks into tiny pieces called microplastics .
Fish and other small sea creatures eat these microplastics without knowing it.
An illustrated food chain diagram showing tiny microplastics inside plankton, then inside small fish, then inside a larger fish, ending with a plate of seafood on a dinner table
Microplastics move up the food chain and eventually reach the food humans eat.
The ocean covers more than seventy percent of our planet and needs our protection .
Reducing plastic use and cleaning up beaches can make a real difference.
Together, we can help protect the ocean and all the creatures that live in it.