Even though Santa Fe is 679 miles away from the nearest ocean, our trash negatively affects ocean life.

Our environment needs to be cleaner for lots of reasons. According to Center for Biological Diversity, seagulls, turtles, dolphins, seahorses and fish die because they eat the trash in the oceans.

Our plastic trash affects us as well because our waters are being polluted. For example, there is a whole island of trash in the Pacific that started forming in 1997. It’s said to be twice the size of Texas. When fish eat the small pieces of trash, we also eat the trash because we eat the fish. Fish eat from 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic each year, according to CBD.

This has created a very difficult environment for turtles and other marine life to live in. One turtle that was caught in a 6-pack ring as a baby became deformed — his body grew into an hourglass shape. Seabirds are also often found with stomachs full of plastic.

There are small things we could do to help. Some ways that we can help out that don’t require a lot of effort is using reusable metal straws instead of plastic straws or just skipping the straw.

According to Sailors For the Sea, a rescue team found a turtle that was having trouble breathing because a straw was stuck up his nose. This shows that doing a small thing like not using plastic straws could have a big impact on an animal’s life. Approximately 500 million straws are collected during International Coastal Cleanup. That could be enough straws to circle the world twice. Plastic lasts forever, but slowly breaks down and could even be microscopic.

Trash bags also have a big impact on the environment, and this could easily be changed. Several states have banned plastic bags and have required stores to charge ten cents for paper bags, which are a little better for the environment because they can be recycled.

Although paper bags are better than plastic, they use a lot of trees. In 1999 it took 14 million trees to make 10 billion paper grocery bags, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Despite the additional charge for reusable bags, it’s worth it because they reduce trash and tree use. They tend to cost from 99 cents to $3, but using them could help the environment a lot in the long run.