Ocean Plastic Pollution

Items like plastic bags, discarded fishing line and balloon strings are highly lethal to marine animals, who swim through them and become entangled.

Turtles, seabirds and even dolphins get caught in these plastic traps. If they cannot swim and reach the surface, mammals that rely on regular breaths of air will eventually drown. For others, the plastic strings may choke them or cut off circulation to their limbs.

We can save animals from entanglement by banning plastic bags and balloons, and working to ensure fishers don’t discard fishing lines carelessly into the sea.

Did you know that half of all seabirds and turtles have plastic in their stomachs? Turtles mistake plastic bags and wraps for jellyfish, their favourite food. Seabirds feed plastic pieces to their babies. Big ocean feeders like whales scoop up plastic along with the plankton that they eat.

Once ingested, sharp plastic pieces can cause internal injuries, or the plastic builds up in their stomach until they can’t digest food. Sadly, the animals will slowly starve and die.

Single-use items like plastic cutlery, straws, bottle caps, take-away containers and plastic bags are just some of the many items that get eaten by animals.

By banning dangerous plastic items like these and choosing safer alternatives, we can save animal lives.

We know that fish, and even zooplankton - some of the smallest creatures on earth - are eating more and more plastic every year. And while you wouldn’t choose to eat plastic soaked in hazardous chemicals, there’s a real danger that you are eating fish and seafood contaminated by microplastic pieces.

Plastics, once in the ocean, are known to absorb a range of hazardous chemicals. Over time, toxins accumulate onto floating and drifting fragmented plastic debris, and are eventually ingested by marine life. We don’t know whether these pollutants are being passed up the food chain to us humans, but it’s likely that they are an increasing risk to human health.

We need an investigation into the toxic risks of plastics in our seafood, and we need to keep plastic out of our oceans - for the safety of our fish, marine life, and ultimately our own lives.