Seabirds will die slowly by swallowing plastic waste

About 90% of seabirds have swallowed plastic and health waste threatened by plastic contamination in the gut.

Seabirds will eat waste plastic until 2050

According to a scientific report published in PNAS, this problem will become worse, as long as people have not acted to prevent the flow of waste into the ocean, BBC on August 31 reported.

Erik Van Sebille, co-author of the study, said the ocean is now filled with plastic waste. It is estimated that the amount of plastic waste flowing into the ocean is now about 8 million tons / year.By 2050, any dead seabird will have some plastic in the stomach.

Seabirds swallow plastic waste will have intestinal obstruction, weight loss, even death.(Photo: BBC)

More and more plastic pieces drift into the sea, causing harm to the marine environment and wildlife. When birds go to feed, they can confuse lighters, bottle caps with fish. If swallowed, plastic waste will remain in the intestine, cannot be eliminated, causing animal health to be at risk.

In the new study, British and Australian scientists reviewed documents for decades to track the number of seabirds swallowing plastic. Results showed that less than 5% of birds had plastic waste in the stomach in 1960. Currently, this figure is about 90%. The research team predicts this rate will increase to 99% by 2050.

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"Plastic inside the seabird body appears everywhere, and it is constantly increasing," BBC quoted Wilcox, the lead author of the study of the Australian Federal Research Agency (CSIRO), for good.

The highest risk zone is not the giant "plastic landfill" floating in the oceans, but the southern sea near Australia, South Africa and South America, where most birds live.