So this is sort of disturbing. This popped up in one of the environmental health newsletters I'm subscribed to.
http://news.sciencemag.org/environment/ ... ic-missingThere's a lot of plastic pollution out in the oceans, the sources ranging from boats (especially cruise boats that literally toss their plastic trash overboard), to discharge from land to beach litter. There's a lot of plastic out there in the ocean, and a recent experiment shows that a lot of it is missing. It may have been broken up my sun exposure or sunk to the bottom, but it's likely it's being eaten by marine fish and other animals.
One of my professors is a marine biologist. He travels for his research a lot, and during the class I took with him this past spring, he showed the class pictures of dead turtles and marine birds, and the autopsies taken of them. Their digestive systems can become literally clogged by plastic waste, and it kills them. Bottle caps, pieces of plastic bottles, plastic bags, even small toys…you name it. Sea turtles are particularly prone, as some species eat sea jellies. To a turtle, a floating plastic bag is indistinguishable from a small jelly.