LETTER: Langley student urges everyone to think about how their actions affect earth

Presented are a selection of the student writings online and in print.

Dear Editor,

As a family was at the beach enjoying the day, one of the children yelled, “Ouch! my feet, I can’t even walk down to the water at the beach without getting glass stuck inside my foot.” This is all because humans are choosing to throw their waste on the sand and into the water.

You may think that it is cool to litter, but all you’re doing is killing animals and making the earth a bad place to live. Did you know that all animals in the sea have a risk of dying because of us polluting it? It is our job to try and stop this from happening. In my essay, I will sharpen your skills about water pollution.

Do you realize that half of the things people do are polluting the earth, and they don’t even realize they’re doing it? For example, when you use plastic bags, you don’t even realize what it does to the oceans. It starts out as fossil fuels and ends up as waste in landfills and in the ocean. So, if you can reduce the amount of plastic bag use, it would slow down the amount of water pollution a lot.

Also, sometimes people carelessly throw their garbage on the ground which pollutes the water. When people go on fishing trips, cruises, or any other kind of boat trips, oil leaks severely harm the water. Gases from cars, buildings, and greenhouses can go into the air and get into the sea also.

With everybody polluting the water, it can make a significant impact on the earth. For instance, if raw sewage gets into the ocean, bacteria uses it for food, and multiplies which uses up all the oxygen. In this case fish can die without oxygen. Chemicals from pollution also make fish sick. The main reason water pollution can harm the earth is because with all the chemicals eating up all the fresh water, there is no good water for humans to survive with.

How can humans reduce the amount of pollution that happens daily? You can solve this problem by doing simple steps. When you clean the toilet or the sink with toxic chemicals, the chemicals go from the sewage into the ocean. If only a few people do it, the bacteria won’t build up and pollute the ocean but when almost the entire world does it, the ocean will get polluted like crazy.

If you can try and eat some organic food in your diet, because it has less chemicals in it and it won’t pollute the ocean.

The actions we take in our daily lives has a huge impact on the ocean and all things living in the ocean.

As you can see, if you follow all these precautions, our world will be a much better place to live. All animals in the sea will have a much longer life by not eating toxic garbage.

Think about every time you pollute, all you’re doing is affecting our fresh water. We need fresh water in order to live. So next time you feel lazy and want to throw garbage on the ground, think about protecting our ocean and the world we live in instead.

Lucas, Grade 7, Gordon Greenwood Elementary

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