The Dangers of Chemical Waste

Chemical wastes are dangerous to the environment. They can disrupt the natural order of things. An out off balance ecosystem would then just keep spiraling out off control.

Runoff waste that ends up in the sea could cause the growth of certain microorganism. As an example is plankton, that are eaten by crown of thorns starfish (COTS) larvae. The abundance of plankton as COTS larvae food will in turn cause a COTS outbreak.

COTS are not dangerous to the coral reef community if their numbers are small, such one or two. However, with the COTS outbreak the numbers of COTS will also be many and more than one. As adult COTS eat corals, the abundance of COTS will then cause the numbers of coral to deplete. That is why it most be insured no COTS outbreak happen by making sure there are no chemical waste polluting the sea.