From a BBC Radio 4 Report:
'They are to the oceans, what CO2 is to the air'
This is a quote from a scientist regarding plastic particles in the ocean known as 'mermaids tears' which are fragments and grains of plastic which could be poisoning our seas and killing off some of our marine life. 80% of this plastic comes from the land.
Jan Van Franeker claimed: 95% of Fulmar birds found dead had ingested plastic. He also stated that sea turtles mistake plastic bags/sheeting for the jelly fish they normally eat and seals are also often caught up in fatal accidents with plastic.
The biggest worry relating to this is the toxic chemicals given off by plastic in the ocean. Plymouth University have been studying plastic particles and have discovered grains of plastic smller than grains of sand in over 20 beaches across the UK. This has also been discovered abroad, in North and South America, Africa, Australia and the Arctic. One Dr. Thompson estimaed there are currently 300,000 items of plastic per sq km of seabed. Toxic chemicals are worrying because of ingestion of marine animals. Many animals at the lower end of the food chain feed by filtering food through and plastic is being ingested by these animals in this way; absorbing the dangerous chemicals. Studies by the team at Plymouth Uni show that these toxins are now travelling along the food chain and are being ingested by anything that eats these invertebrates. This could mean coming back and reaching humans.
Spokeswoman for the plastics industry has claimed that there is no evidence for absorption of plastic by animals actually happening in nature, only theroetically. Also claimed it is 'the people's problem' for it is they whom discard of the rubbish.
Further studies are being done to find out how detrimental this problem could be. But as most plastics found on the beach are post-consumer, we should start looking at ourselves to try and clean the problem up.
For more information see the following BBC news article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6218698.stm
