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Writer's pictureJack Nessen
Nov 17, 20171 min read

Marine Ingestion of Plastics

Updated: Dec 1, 2017



When plastic is consumed by marine life, it is called "ingestion". The ingestion of plastics is harmful and tragic. Animals often mistake floating plastics for food and upon eating them are exposed to a variety of issues.


Plastics can cause choking and extreme

internal damage to organs, muscles and tissue, especially among smaller animals. Plastics can also disrupt digestive processes. Once an animal eats enough plastic, it feels "full". Its brain tell the animals to stop eating because its stomach is full, but instead of begin full of plankton, fish, crustaceans or other natural food species, its full of plastic. This can result in awful consequences. The animal in question isn't receiving any nutritional benefit, and can die from starvation.


Items such as plastic bags, bottle caps, plastic sheeting and tarps, and micro plastics are some of the most commonly found items during marine necropsies.





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The Problem With Plastic

Plastic just may be the most helpful material ever created, and the most harmful. 

 

After World War II, plastic goods sales exploded in the United States. Radio and early TV commercials heralded the emergence of plastics as the "cure all" for the modern home. Single-use plastic goods offered ease and simplicity to homemakers with the idea that plastics, would reduce the workload within the home. Soon enough, plastics dominated the American landscape, finding their way into cuisine, medicine, infrastructure, technology and more.

 

Americans and eventually countries worldwide would develop an addiction for plastic goods, especially single-use plastics, or items that are used only once, and then thrown away. In 2017, our oceans, the life that resides within them and, even us, are feeling the toll of our unchecked usage of plastics as it threatens the balance in which the health of our oceans so desperately hangs. 

 

Plastics enter the ocean in a variety of ways. They can be blown in by wind or rain. They can flow through surface water throughout our watersheds until they reach the ocean. They can be dumped directly into the ocean. They can be littered onto our beaches and lapped up by the waves. Regardless of how it reaches the ocean, all plastics pose a serious threat to marine life

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