Plastic Killing Ocean Animals

Since it won t digest they can t pass it through and they are unable to eat anything else.

Plastic killing ocean animals.

Remnants of cultures all. Animals who ingest large amounts of plastic end up with stomachs full of the stuff. Plastic pollution affects at least 700 marine species and some estimates suggest that at least 100 million marine mammals are killed each year by it. Midway atoll a remote island situated on the edge of the great pacific garbage patch is covered with plastic debris swept.

Examples abound from the gray whale that died after stranding near seattle in 2010 with more than 20 plastic bags a golf ball and other rubbish in its stomach to the harbor seal pup found dead on the scottish island of skye its intestines fouled by a small piece of plastic wrapper. For animals plastic is turning the ocean into a minefield. Eventually the poor creatures starve to death. Eriksen knew that river plastics eventually become the ocean plastics that are now killing marine animals worldwide.

Plastic pollution in the ocean is a massive and growing problem. Recycle everything you can. However ocean garbage has been shown to kill many other animals in very similar ways. The most significant overuse of plastic is plastic packaging.

It is hard to estimate exactly how many animals are affected by plastic in the oceans each year though. According to the us environmental protection agency epa the use of single use plastic packaging has grown from 120 000 tons in 1960 to 12 700 000 tons in 2006. How the plastic you use is killing animals on one of the world s most remote islands 3 years ago. A plastic shard piercing an intestine can kill a bird quickly.

Turning this tide starts at an individual level. Our ocean and the array of species that call it home are succumbing to the poison of plastic. The ocean supplies midway island with a constant stream of garbage. The usage of plastic packaging has skyrocketed over the past fifty years.

Every year australia dumps 130 000 tonnes of plastic into its oceans and this goes on to indiscriminately kill marine mammals birds and other creatures. As he traveled. 13 thoughts on plastic is killing our oceans issues facts and possible solutions judes kingsbury reply.