Plasticosis

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. As a conservation biologist who studies plastic ingestion by marine wildlife, I can count on the same question whenever I present research: “How does plastic affect the animals that eat it?”   This is one of the biggest questions in this field, and the verdict is still out. However, a recent study from the Adrift Lab, a group of Australian and international scientists who study plastic pollution,…

Scientists have described a new disease called plasticosis, which is directly caused by – you guessed it – plastic waste in the environment. While the disease has so far only been identified in the digestive tracts of seabirds, the scale of the problem suggests it could be widespread in other species and different parts of the body.Plastic is one of the most ubiquitous materials in our modern world, so it’s not surprising that it’s also among the most common pollutants. Huge amounts of the stuff are accumulating from the…