A typical albatross stomach includes “stuff about the size of a cigarette lighter – everything from golf balls to shotgun shells, or chunks of plastic that used to be something bigger,” according to When this albatross died, it had 558 individual pieces of plastic stuffed into its stomach. A huge piece of Styrofoam packaging had been caught, now bobbing and slowly breaking down. In some cases, lawmakers are getting in on the action: California recently Stock tries to drive this message home with a unique educational program that focuses on the ever-charismatic albatrosses and their plastic woes called It also helps students feel like there’s some cause for hope for the future of the ocean. Plastic sits in the decomposed carcass of a seabird on Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. One that has gotten a lot of publicity recently is from a Dutch engineering student, Beyond the impracticality of these projects, a more fundamental criticism is that even if someone came up with an ocean-sweeping project that was practical and effective, it would still only be a bandage addressing the problem’s symptoms but not its cause: littering.“Until we stop putting things into the ocean, it’s really not a feasible thing to clean it up,” said Jennifer Stock, the outreach and education coordinator for Much of the new waste that the EPA’s Cook sees on Midway comes from plastic containers: things like grocery bags, take-out containers and single-serve drinks. Since then, plastic production has dramatically increased. The Eastern Island is now littered with tiny fragments of plastic.
The young birds who are so grossly plugged with plastic are probably ingesting it from the beach while their parents are gone. Since 1997 NOAA, the US Coast Guard and other partners have been working in the area to remove derelict fishing gear from the reefs, and we particularly focus on areas where entanglement by young monk seals is of highest concern. The birds die and decay, but the plastic inside them stays forever in the sand -- a layer of man's doing that will never go away. Bohlander says plastic ingestion could be causing reproductive problems for the seals -- and the bigger the animal, the bigger the concentration of plastic. Not only does the plastic occupy volume in the chick’s stomachs and lead to a greater chance of death by dehydration, but sharp plastics can fatally puncture portions of the digestive tract. There is plastic, pollution and death.But Midway is also at the center of what researchers call the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a huge area of floating plastic collected by oceanic currents.
She’s always been fascinated by science but writing and communication have been her specialty; working as a science journalist enables her to pursue her passion while utilizing her skills. Is this statement accurate?
Nearly two million Laysan albatrosses live here and researchers have come to the staggering conclusion that every single one contains some quantity of plastic. ASSOCIATED PRESS / OCT. 22. Part of this is nature: CNN visited the island in June -- the time of year when the Laysan albatross lay their chicks, who must learn to fly, or die.But part of it is man-made: When you tear open the fragile ribcages of the birds who did not survive -- as US Fish and Wildlife Service Superintendent Matthew Brown did in front of us -- the sheer volume of plastic waste now in our world becomes apparent.
Seafood is essential to human life, but there is growing evidence that fish may prefer eating plastic to food. Sources: Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Lisbeth Van CauwenbergheThese smaller particles are what end up in the food chain. And Midway, just by dint of its own distance and damage, is making that case.
These nets get shortlisted for the trash piles that are eventually removed by the next NOAA ship, but space fills up quickly. The birds’ feeding behavior brings over 10 thousand pounds of plastic to Midway every year.Jennifer Hackett is a graduate of the College of William and Mary, where she studied physics and history.