Plastic Causes Severe Harm to Marine Life

The uses for plastic are limited only by human imagination. The development and diversity of plastics has been a phenomenon of the past half century. Yet plastic is insidious, invasive, environmentally lethal and virtually indestructible. It can be readily and irresponsibly discarded and it can survive almost indefinitely. Animals living in and around the ocean are suffering because of this.

Half a century ago this oceanic cesspit was made largely of vegetable matter and was essentially biodegradable. Today it is 90 percent indestructible plastic. The patch contained up to 100 million tons of debris. The plastic hangs like a blanket 10m deep. Plastic particles in this man-made scum outnumber living plankton - the basic marine food source - by something like six to one. Under prolonged exposure to sunlight, together with wave and current friction, plastic breaks down into small, mere millimeter fragments.

The result is obvious and catastrophic. The United Nations Environmental Program estimates plastic is killing one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and turtles each year. Whales, which live on a diet of plankton and krill, ingest these tiny plastic shards. Plastic is inevitably found in the stomachs of dead seabirds and turtles.

The ocean isn't large enough to avoid marine life encounters with debris. Plastic's devastating effect on marine mammals was first observed in the late 1970s, when scientists from the National Marine Mammal Laboratory concluded that plastic entanglement was killing up to 40,000 seals a year. Annually, this amounted to a four to six percent drop in seal population beginning in 1976. In 30 years, a 50% decline in Northern Fur Seals has been reported.

When plastic reaches our waters, whether it be plastic bags or drifting fish nets, it poses a threat to the animals that depend on the oceans for food. To a sea turtle, a floating plastic bag looks like a jellyfish. And plastic pellets--the small hard pieces of plastic from which plastic products are made--look like fish eggs to seabirds. Drifting nets entangle birds, fish and mammals, making it difficult, if not impossible to move or eat. As our consumption of plastic mounts, so too does the danger to marine life.

Curious, playful seals often play with fragments of plastic netting or packing straps, catching their necks in the webbing. The plastic harness can constrict the seal's movements, killing the seal through starvation, exhaustion, or infection from deep wounds caused by the tightening material. While diving for food, both seals and whales can get caught in translucent nets and drown. In the fall of 1982, a humpback whale tangled in 50 to 100 feet of net washed up on a Cape Cod beach. It was starving and its ribs were showing. It died within a couple of hours.



Pelicans diving for fish sometimes dive for the bait on a fisherman's line. Cutting the bird loose only makes the problem worse, as the pelican gets its wings and feet tangled in the line, or gets snagged onto a tree.

Plastic soda rings, "baggies," styrofoam particles and plastic pellets are often mistaken by sea turtles as authentic food. Clogging their intestines, and missing out on vital nutrients, the turtles starve to death. Seabirds undergo a similar ordeal, mistaking the pellets for fish eggs, small crab and other prey, sometimes even feeding the plastic pellets to their young. Despite the fact that only 0.05% of plastic pieces from surface waters are pellets, they comprise about 70% of the plastic eaten by seabirds. These small plastic particles have been found in the stomachs of 63 of the world's approximately 250 species of seabirds.

Marine life is hopeless in this situation and they rely on us to help in diminishing the toxins in their home. Even little amounts can help, liking breaking down the plastic rings holding a six pack together, or cutting the ring on a milk carton. The damage is done, but it does not have to get worse for these innocent ocean creatures. Do your part.