Plastic Microbead Trash from Oceans to Great Lakes Hurting Birds, Marine Life

“We can show that the chemicals are adhering to the plastic. We can show that organisms eat the plastic. We can show the chemicals then desorb into the organism that affects the health of THAT organism!”

- Sherri Mason, Ph.D., Assoc. Prof. of Chemistry, SUNY - Fredonia, NY

More than a million Laysan Albatrosses (Tournefortia argentea) live on the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the middle of the Pacific Ocean administered by theU. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Above are albatross chicks amid plastic garbage accumulating on Midway and sadly being eaten by and hurting the albatrosses. Once home to the Midway Naval Air Station, Midway is now a U. S. Minor Outlying Island only 2.4 square miles in size positioned 3,200 miles (5,200 km) west of San Francisco and 2,500 miles (4,100 km) east of Tokyo. Image © 2008 by U. S. Navy.

May 29, 2014 Los Angeles, California, and Fredonia, New York - The Earth has five major ocean gyres where the water swirls around and around and floating trash from humanity collects in those swirls creating great garbage patches in the North and South Atlantic Ocean; the North and South Pacific Ocean; and the Indian Ocean.

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