We are all intimately connected with the ocean, regardless of where we live. Our impacts on the ocean are most dire near the coast, within the exclusive economic zones. Much of our negative impact boils down to our use of the ocean as a dumpster for wastewater, fertilizer and litter. Wastewater and fertilizer input excess nutrients, mostly nitrogen and phosphorus, into the coastal ocean. This causes eutrophication which can lead to dead zones with little to no oxygen and jellyfish population explosions.

In Earth history, inputs of nutrients, specifically phosphorus, from land into the ocean caused the first mass extinction event by the same deoxygenation process. Contemporary marine litter is mostly composed of plastic, which we produce at an astounding rate and discard carelessly and which consequently spreads all over the planet. While the (sub)lethal effects of plastic on life are still unclear, its sheer accumulation bodes ill for the future. There remains some hope in consumers influencing plastic production and microbes being engineered to assist with plastic recycling, with the aim of further reducing plastic production. But all this only works if decision-makers actually reduce production and consumption of plastic.

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