Hi to everyone! 

Today I am going to talk about one of the best Disney classic - Little Mermaid.

I am not going to regard this message to one of the speeches of Jordan B. Peterson about this cartoon names- The disability Bureaucracy Wants Your Soul. I am going to refer it to a plastic pollution of our oceans and how we need to tell the kids the truth, because all of the things happening in cartoons are not true. And it is not because this is a fairytale or we did not prove it, but because of amount of litter and garbage in the water.

Every single minute people throw on water surface from one plastic bottle on the beach or shores to a giant containers of Toxic wastes in cruise liners or a ship labs. It means that there is no way that some of sentient beings like mermaids will not stand up for their habitat. But first of all let me show you the kinds of water pollution which now exist:

• physical.Garbage, and especially plastic, which practically does not decompose, is a huge problem for the ecology of the oceans. Millions of tons of plastic waste drift over the surface of the oceans, and according to experts, 80% of this garbage fell into the ocean from land and only 20% was dumped or washed away from ships. Garbage harms more than 250 species of marine animals and birds and releases toxic substances into the water;

• biological. Pollution of the waters of The world's oceans by foreign bacteria and various microorganisms, as well as organic waste, steadily leads to a violation of the fragile ecological balance;

• chemical. Chemicals and heavy metals are used in a wide variety of industries. Together with sewage, they enter the ocean, and in huge quantities. Especially dangerous is mercury, which accumulates in living organisms, as well as pesticides. However, not only large factories are guilty of chemical pollution of the ocean: a lot of chemicals get into the water and from the sewer, because we constantly use synthetic detergents;

• oil. Oil and petroleum products are the main source of pollution of the world's oceans. Oil gets into the water as a result of man-made disasters, tanker crashes and well drilling, but a lot of oil products are dumped by conventional sea transport. Oil spills lead to the death of a huge number of marine animals, fish and birds, and in addition, they interfere with the normal heat exchange between the layers of water; 

• thermal. Waste water that is discharged into the oceans by power plants locally increases the water temperature, which leads to the mass death of creatures that can not survive at such high temperatures. This disrupts food chains and leads to the disappearance of many species of animals. At the same time, some types of algae begin to multiply too actively, resulting in water blooming;

• radioactive - The ocean has long been a graveyard of radioactive waste. According to research estimates, today there are so many radioactive substances in the world's oceans that they would be enough for 30 (!) Chernobyls'.

And I want to show you my report about amount of which is now rutting in the ocean.

Those wonderful pictures I get from BBC news

About 10 million tonnes of plastic currently ends up in our oceans each year.

In 2010 scientists from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and the University of Georgia in Athens estimated the figure as 8 metric tonnes, and forecast that to rise to 9.1 metric tonnes by 2015.

So if we will make some calculations:

2020-2015= 5 - years which has passed

5*10 = 50 - million tones are now floating freely in our oceans, 

So this calculations also contains the Biggest plastic “stain” in Great Pacific ocean. So about it:

The great Pacific garbage patch (eng. Great Pacific garbage patch, or Eastern Garbage Patch — Eastern garbage continent, or Pacific Trash Vortex-Pacific "garbage") - accumulation of garbage of anthropogenic origin in the North Pacific ocean. It is located between 135°-155° West longitude and 35°-42° North latitude. This section contains a collection of plastic and other waste brought by the waters of the North Pacific current system. - Wikipedia. 

In my opinion this stain we can take in account as a new continent, because the density of garbage in some places is so high, that someday we can build cities there. 

This is a closer look

And this photo is showing how it looks like from space if someone put some colours to it - new continent.

Looks like Australia right? 

But no, the sad truth is, this is streams and plastic collaborated. 

Also about sad truth, we can make a closer look in one of the most popular curorts in the world - Hawaiian beaches. 

One of the most popular beaches now filled with all kinds of products, from bottles to hairbrushes and toxic wastes.   

But there is a hidden problem, which contains thousands times smaller, but in the same time thousands times larger, this is a microplastic. 

You can not see is without microscope, but it is slowly killing living creatures in oceans and us too. Because we eat a fish(small retreat, I will write a report about overfishing in the next message) and this microplastic which is located in their stomach or blood. It also penetrates our system, sometimes it stucks in our lungs or inner system, but most of the times it is in our stomach. 

Microscopic plastic fibers that peel off when washing synthetic clothing or from car tires when driving are one of the main sources of pollution in the world's oceans, ha scientist found. In some areas, this source of pollution causes more damage to the ocean than pollution from conventional, visible waste.

A recent report from the International Union for conservation of nature States

Microfibres of plastic make up between 15% and 31% of the total amount of ocean-polluting plastic. In quantitative terms, this is about 9.5 million tons of microplastics per year.

Now some positive news about beach in Mumbai 

This is what the same thinking and volunteering can make 

For the first time in decades, about 80 olive turtles have hatched and survived on one of the largest and most popular beaches in Mumbai, India. According to local environmental activists, recognized by the International Union for conservation of nature vulnerable Vidal offspring thanks to a large-scale operation to clean up the beach from debris. The UN called the volunteers' work "the world's largest beach cleaning project": in two years, Veresova has turned from a garbage dump into a virtually untouched part of the coastline. The guardian newspaper reported on the environmental campaign.

The name of a young Indian lawyer from Mumbai, Phrase Shah, has become synonymous with the world's largest beach cleaning project. In 86 weeks, the Shah and thousands of volunteers who joined him removed 5400 tons of garbage from Verona beach. For this act, the Shah was awarded with the title "champion of the Earth"by the UN.

In October 2015, Shah and his 84-year-old neighbor, Harbash matur, who had already passed away, were upset to see piles of decomposing debris that filled the city's Versova beach. Determined, they began cleaning up the beach, removing one pile of garbage after another each time, the UN website said.

Since then, every weekend, Afroz and the volunteers who joined him - from slum dwellers to bollywood stars, from schoolchildren to politicians-have returned again and again to Verson beach, as Shah jokes, "on a date with the ocean," which actually means cleaning up garbage under the scorching Indian sun.

In the 86 weeks to the end of may 2017, they removed 5400 tons of garbage from the beach. 

So from small explanation i am going to talk about Little Mermaid.

How can you see the picture of the sea? There is crystal clear water without any garbage. That is  why I love this movie so much. For nowadays generation (who is under the effect of globalisation) are aware about pollution out there, in a blue vastness of our earth, but what cartoon really shows us is utopia or heaven, of course this thought coming with influence of standards like Happily Ever After, love from a first sight or gaze and witches and magic everywhere, but in this film there was actually an example of a perfect water environment. 

Older I am becoming, more I am seeing what our goal is - to not make any pressure or impact on our water resources, so that one day we will look upon the water surface and we will not notice a single packet or any bottles, but only transparent, not subject to anyone's blue smoothness, stretching from west to east and spreading its waves from north to south the clear water with living corals and leaving creatures, from small fish, to giant whales or dolphins are swimming freely without any worry of danger and pain from plastic in their stomachs. 

About pollution which was shown in Little Mermaid shows a sinking ships with things of voyagers and sailors and some of their cargo. All interesting trinkets which you can collect from there Ariele had. Do you remember the scene in her cave and song:

Look at this stuff 

isn’t it neat?

Would not you think my collection is complete?

Your argument here can be: There were shown the times when they got no idea about plastic and Earth was not so crowded.

Well yes, I completely agree with you, but this is an ideal world which we need to take in account as an example. I think if your choice falls in materialistic type of being, of course it is an unreachable goal, but if your choice falls in theoretical way, well there are some possibilities that this thing might work. 

The way how characters there care about their home and environment will some of us never understand also our type of thinking is different - those hands can hold the world and it will never be enough. That is the main thing which led us to what we are seeing now and the world which now exists. 

For nowadays generation (who is under the effect of globalisation) are aware about pollution out there, in a blue vastness of our earth, but what cartoon really shows us is utopia or heaven, of course this thought coming with influence of standards like Happily Ever After, love from a first sight or gaze and witches and magic everywhere, but in this film there was actually an example of a perfect water environment. 

Older I am becoming, more i am seeing what our goal is - to not make any pressure or impact on our water resources, so that one day we will look upon the water surface and we will not notice a single packet or any bottles, but only transparent, not subject to anyone's blue smoothness, stretching from west to east and spreading its waves from north to south.

By those simple cartoon I am trying to explain tough things and huge as well.

Gamazova Diana, 10.02.2020