What are three or four very destructive effects of ocean dumping?
If you mean general human-related dumping, three big problems are sewage, heavy metal contamination, and artificial biocides. Problems occur when the amount of effluent is too high to be diluted. Sewage generally contains large amounts of nitrogen and phosphates, which can lead to phytoplankton blooms. As the plankton dies and decays, oxygen is taken up from the water. The loss of oxygen as a result of increased nutrient is called eutrophication. Heavy metals in the water are dangerous when they have a chance to built up inside organisms. Organisms tend not to get rid of the metals within them, so it accumulates over the coarse of their life (called bioaccumulation). When one organism eats many organisms which each contain some heavy metals, the metals accumulate even faster within it (called biomagnification). If there is enough contamination with an organism, it can get very sick and may die. Artificial biocides also undergo biomagnification among marine organisms. The pesticide, DDT
