Plastic fragments are frequently ingested by a wide range of marine animals that often mistake the substance for food.
These heartbreaking photos reveal the devastating impact of the plastic crisis that is blighting the planet's oceans. The images, which have been taken by photographers around the world, show everything from turtles trapped in fishing nets to dead whales with their bellies full of debris.
"We have known about problems like ingestion and entanglement [in nets or lines] for many decades. These types of interaction with plastic can kill animals by strangling or suffocating them, or causing them to starve, but encounters with plastic can also have impacts short of death, like pain, lower survival rates, and loss of reproductive viability," she said.
Marine debris can entangle and harm marine organisms. For air-breathing organisms, such as the green sea turtle, entanglement in debris can prevent animals from being able to swim to the surface, causing them to drown. NOAAfound that an estimated half of all sea turtles around the world have ingested plastic.
A young monk seal on Laysan Island holds a plastic fragment in his mouth. Matthew Chauvin/The Ocean Cleanup The plastics themselves can also potentially release substances called plastisizers after ingestion, according to Rolsky. These chemical additives—many of which have been linked to cancer in animals—are used in the production of plastics.
"If marine organisms are consuming plastics, supporting dangerous levels of contaminants, then it is fair to say that the plastics are a threat to human health as well," Rolsky said."Plastic fibers have been found in bivalves, such as oysters, which were designated for human consumption. "An unexplored aspect of microplastics is that we know that foreign, non-biodegradable objects in the human body lead to inflammation," he told."Inflammation is a pre-cursor of cancer. Autopsies have shown the presence of plastic particulate in cancer victims. This does not imply that the plastics caused the cancer, but it behooves us to study the impact of now unavoidable plastic pollution on both our physiology and life expectancy. Research in this area is still in its infancy.
Microplastics are pervasive in the marine environment. While they are hard to track due to their tiny size, one 2015 study published in the journal, suggested that the accumulated number of microplastic particles in the ocean could be anywhere between 15 and 15 trillion. The other 20 percent of plastic debris enters marine ecosystems via nautical activities, including recreational pursuits—for example, motor boats, sailing, plastics left on beaches—fishing and aqua-farming."Although much of the plastic in the ocean comes from Southeast Asia, developed countries like the U.S.
Aside from the environmental concerns, plastic waste in the ocean also has significant economic implications. It is thought that plastic pollution costs the global economy millions every year when factoring in the cost of beach clean-ups, tourism losses and damages to fishing and aquaculture industries.
"Government regulation is needed, and in my opinion, the only solution that will work," Mendenhall said.
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