Organisms that are filter feeders (plankton, shellfish, baleen whales) or that live under the beach sand (lugworms) cannot make that distinction. Some fish eat plastic because they mistake it for fish eggs and bite at floating plastic in the water. Turtles see plastic bags as the jellyfish that are usually on their menu. In the stomachs of the northern fulmar – which gathers its food by flying with an open beak above the water surface – plastic is almost always found. Many grazing animals on land also eat plastic. Plastic debris coated with food waste increases the chance that the plastic will be eaten.
What happens when animals eat plastic
Animals that accidentally eat plastic suffer and often die as a result of it. Swallowed plastic fills the stomach and not surprisingly this reduces the feeling of hunger. Animals eat less, obtain less energy, and weaken. Larger pieces of plastic can also block their gastrointestinal tract so that the plastic can no longer be excreted. In other cases, plastic is ground into small pieces in the stomach and then scattered everywhere. In this way, the northern fulmar grinds and spreads millions of pieces every year. Some of it is left at abandoned nesting sites.
Shocking numbers of animals with plastic in the stomach
Fish eat plastic. Turtles eat plastic bags. Even whales have been found dead with tons of plastic in the stomach. The stomach contents of the northern fulmar, according to long-term Dutch research, consist of an average of twenty-five pieces of plastic. A sperm whale that washed up at the Wakatobi National Park in Indonesia in December 2018 had 115 cups, 25 bags, four bottles and two slippers in its stomach. More than a thousand pieces of plastic were counted in the whale’s stomach and the total weight of plastic was six kilos. In the United Arab Emirates, plastic causes half of all camel deaths. The animals eat garbage and lumps of plastic of between ten and sixty kilos have been found in their stomachs. Because the plastic cannot pass out of the stomach, the lump continues to grow until the animal dies of starvation. In July 2010, a young green turtle washed ashore, heavily weakened, on the coast of Brazil near Florianópolis and died a few hours later. This specimen had 3267 pieces of plastic in its gut and another 308 pieces in its stomach. Only pieces of plastic larger than 5 mm were counted.
