14 DAY TRIAL // The northwestern coasts of North America are beginning to show the same levels of plastic pollution as the extremely damaged North Sea, Canadian investigators at the University of British Columbia (UBC) show in a new study.
The research, conducted in Washington, Oregon, and the coasts of British Columbia, focused on collecting samples from the stomachs of beached northern fulmars. These creatures have long been used as gages for measuring plastic pollution levels in the world's waters, Science Blog reports.
“Their stomach content provides a ‘snapshot’ sample of plastic pollution from a large area of the northern Pacific Ocean,” explains UBC expert and lead study author, Stephanie Avery-Gomm. Twine, Styrofoam and candy wrappers were the most common types of plastic found in 67 fulmars.
Statistically, each bird had 0.385 grams of plastic in their stomach, the equivalent of 5 percent of their body mass. This is the equivalent of a human carrying 50 grams of plastic in their stomach.