Plastic.
What a great invention.
It has made our lives so much easier:
from the everyday toothbrush
to a straw that filters out the toxins in your water.
But at the rate we are using plastic, there will be no earth left to save.
We use plastic on a daily basis.
But what we don't realize, it takes about 450 years
for the average plastic bottle to biodegrade,
and most of the time, it doesn't even biodegrade;
instead, it turns into small bits of plastic called microplastic.
Now, this microplastic and other plastic debris
gathers in the middle of our oceans
to make islands that are called garbage patches.
These garbage patches can be three to four times the size of Texas.
Now, I would like to take you on a journey
of the average plastic bottle.
A bottle starts in a factory
where oils and other crude materials are mixed together
to make the raw material of our plastic bottle.
Now it's sent to another factory
where it is molded and formed into the bottle.
Then, another factory
where it's filled with a sugary drink that we are addicted to.
Then, it's sent to the store,
where someone like you or I buys it,
and we use it for 15 minutes.
That's a minuscule part of our life and its.
Then we throw it away - like it's no big deal.
It makes me sad and angry that sometimes us as human beings
can be so ignorant about how we treat our environment.
Anyways, back to our journey.
Somehow it ends up in the Mississippi River
and flows down river to hit the Gulf of Mexico.
From there it is swept up by the Northern Atlantic Current.
It flows out in the middle of the ocean
and hits the Northern Atlantic Garbage Patch.
Out there, hundreds of animals die each day from plastic.
Let's take the average sea turtle for example.
So, the sea turtle will mistake a plastic bag for a jellyfish
and will eat it as its meal.
And the plastic tricks the sea turtle into thinking it's full,
but in reality, it's not getting the nutrients it needs
and soon will starve to death.
When I heard about this, this made me so sad,
and from then on, I've always wanted to help our planet.
So, I know this sounds like a talk about how we are horrible
and we can't do anything to save our earth,
but I promise you it's not too late.
Even if just choosing the can over the plastic bottle
or choosing a piece of fruit instead of a bag of chips,
every little thing you do makes a difference.
We are the generation to save our oceans.
So, let's do something about it.
Thank you.
(Applause)