Birds Eat So Much Plastic That They Crunch
The Washington Post has discovered that a bird species in Australia has ingested so much plastic that it crunches when people touch it.
The paper reports, ‘The “harrowing” finding of plastic in the stomachs of birds — including chicks less than 3 months old — is a stark warning for the health of other species in the marine environment, said ecologist Alex Bond, principal curator at Britain’s Natural History Museum.’ One bird that died had 778 pieces of plastic in it
While the amount of plastic may be surprising, the fact that it exists is not. Plastics enter humans, fish, and animals in two ways. One is in large chunks. The other, and much more common, is via microplastics, which are found in a range from as deep below the ocean as 20,000 feet and in plastic bottles used for water.
Microplastics
Microcroplasitics already affect human health. According to the AAMC, “New research, published in August 2023, adds to a slew of recent studies pointing to an alarming trend: microplastics are everywhere. Minuscule plastic particles that come from degraded plastic products are found throughout the environment. Scientists estimate there are 8-10 million metric tons of plastics in the oceans, and some of that is consumed by fish and other wildlife. Microplastics have been detected in fruits and vegetables, plastic water bottles, the air, cosmetics, and household dust. Now, researchers are finding them in almost every part of the human body, including in breast milk, the placenta, testicles, hearts, livers, and kidneys.”
The bird story is isolated in that the problem has not been as dramatic elsewhere, but that could change.
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