Rhetorical Analysis Of Plastic Pollution

Plastic pollution is something that is drastically changing our ecosystems. With more trash thrown into bodies of water every day, it’s said that “plastics in the ocean will outweigh fish pound for pound in 2050” (“How”). Microplastics are changing the way plastic pollution may travel, and not in a good way. Microplastics are pieces of plastic less than 1mm in size and because of that, they can’t be removed from the ocean. In recent studies, researchers discovered that Zooplankton are able to digest these (“Plankton”). Normally, when they defecate, without digesting the plastic, they travel to the bottom of the ocean floor and build up to strengthen the nutrients on the bottom floor. However, when Zooplankton digest plastic, since it’s less dense than what they normally eat, it takes longer time to travel so the feces will most likely be caught by a fish while travelling to the bottom of the floor. This is a rhetorical analysis of the article “Plankton feces could move plastic pollution to the ocean daily”.
As of January 2015, there is said to be “a minimum of 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic in our oceans” (). This article is writing to tell the people of the world what microplastics are and how they are exceedingly affecting our oceans. In the context of who they are writing to, it is for the entire world population and more specifically, researchers. They mention in the article that “the NERC funded research, Microplastics Alter the Properties and Sinking Rates of Zooplankton Faecal Pellets is published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology” (“Plankton”). They are informing other researchers about the work of the University of Exeter and hope to inspire them to work on microplastics