Did you know that the soap you use to wash your face may actually alter the density of
krill poop?
It’s actually a big deal.
Hi guys, Lissette here for Dnews.
You may already be familiar with how plastic in the ocean is killing wildlife, but it’s
more than just plastic soda rings strangling seabirds and fish.
The impact of plastic goes far beyond just what we can immediately see - especially because
of tiny bits of plastic that end up in the ocean, called microplastics.
They’re having a ton of secondary effects and unexpected consequences.
Though there is no standard definition, microplastics are generally defined as smaller than 5 mm.
In the ocean, these come from larger pieces of plastic that have degraded over time or
straight from our products - like the small plastic beads in our body wash and the plastic
fibers in our clothes.
A recent study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, found plastics could
be changing food dispersion!
Researchers found that zooplankton - which are small marine animals like krill and copepods
- eat microplastics.
Not good.
Because once the tiny sea creatures eat these plastic bits, they then excrete them in their
fecal pellets - yeah poop.
The thing is, this plastic makes their feces weigh less so it sinks much more slowly....
And the fact that they’re sinking more slowly means there’s also more time for other animals
to eat these pellets, marine animals like turtles, fish and birds..
Without the plastic, the feces would sink faster, getting to the bottom of the ocean
where it would be consumed by coprophagous bottom dwellers.
But, now all of a sudden, it is being consumed by a new group of marine life.
Which is a big problem.
First, because the plastics themselves contain toxic chemicals.
And second, because plastics absorb toxins from the surrounding water - this makes their
toxicity many times greater than the surrounding water itself.
So, when marine animals eat the plastic poop pellets, it could be deadly.
The microplastics contain chemicals - like BPA and Phthalates and when consumed can cause
organ damage, genetic mutations, reproductive issues, developmental abnormalities and disrupt
hormone systems.
In their study, Rochman and colleagues found that exposure to polyethylene microplastics
for two months led to liver stress and altered gene expression in japanese medaka fish (Oryzias
latipes).
In another study, which was published in the journal Environmental Pollution, scientists
found that goby fish, that were exposed to microplastics, readily confused them for food,
which in turn decreased the amount of real food they ate.
Again, not good.
And multiple studies on mollusks, have found that BPA leads to endocrine disruption that
causes mollusks to have additional female organs, engrossed sex glands, and even higher
mortality.
Basically, microplastics can really make some marine life sick.
And because we eat these fish, they may end up making us sick too - as was suggested by
the United Nations Environment Programme through their call to ban microplastics from cosmetics.
However, research on the impact of microplastics in humans is currently limited.
But, with more than five trillion bits of plastic currently in the ocean that reaches
concentrations of up to 100,000 particles per cubic meter and more being pumped into
our environment, it definitely warrants more research.
Especially given that one tiny plastic bead that came from a soap can be cycled through
multiple fish and fish poo back to fish and on to us to repeat the cycle all over again.
But this is just one of the many stories you could tell about our oceans.
Why not tell your own in your style with a website?
No domain extension will help you tell your story like a DOT COM or DOT NET domain name.
And because you watch DNews, you can get 15% off Domain Dot Com’s names and web hosting
by using the code DNews when you check out.