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Plastic.

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What a great invention.

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It has made our lives so much easier:

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from the everyday toothbrush

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to a straw that filters out
the toxins in your water.

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But at the rate we are using plastic,
there will be no earth left to save.

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We use plastic on a daily basis.

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But what we don't realize,
it takes about 450 years

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for the average plastic bottle
to biodegrade,

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and most of the time,
it doesn't even biodegrade;

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instead, it turns into small bits
of plastic called microplastic.

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Now, this microplastic 
and other plastic debris

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gathers in the middle of our oceans

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to make islands
that are called garbage patches.

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These garbage patches can be
three to four times the size of Texas.

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Now, I would like to take
you on a journey

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of the average plastic bottle.

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A bottle starts in a factory

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where oils and other crude materials
are mixed together

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to make the raw material
of our plastic bottle.

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Now it's sent to another factory

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where it is molded
and formed into the bottle.

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Then, another factory

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where it's filled with a sugary drink
that we are addicted to.

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Then, it's sent to the store,

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where someone like you or I buys it,

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and we use it for 15 minutes.

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That's a minuscule part
of our life and its.

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Then we throw it away -
like it's no big deal.

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It makes me sad and angry
that sometimes us as human beings

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can be so ignorant about how
we treat our environment.

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Anyways, back to our journey.

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Somehow it ends up
in the Mississippi River

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and flows down river
to hit the Gulf of Mexico.

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From there it is swept up
by the Northern Atlantic Current.

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It flows out in the middle of the ocean

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and hits the Northern
Atlantic Garbage Patch.

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Out there, hundreds of animals
die each day from plastic.

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Let's take the average
sea turtle for example.

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So, the sea turtle will mistake
a plastic bag for a jellyfish

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and will eat it as its meal.

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And the plastic tricks the sea turtle 
into thinking it's full,

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but in reality, it's not getting
the nutrients it needs

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and soon will starve to death.

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When I heard about this,
this made me so sad,

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and from then on, I've always
wanted to help our planet.

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So, I know this sounds like a talk
about how we are horrible

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and we can't do anything
to save our earth,

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but I promise you it's not too late.

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Even if just choosing the can
over the plastic bottle

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or choosing a piece of fruit
instead of a bag of chips,

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every little thing you do
makes a difference.

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We are the generation to save our oceans.

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So, let's do something about it.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)