Day 104: Would you like plastic with that?

Photo credit: Green News Update

Building on yesterday's post about choosing sustainable fish supplies when eating seafood, today's post is about the extra "ingredients" that may come with it. Plastic Oceans (2017) report that each year, an estimated 8 million tons of plastic waste finds its way into the world's oceans, often from litter that has not been disposed of properly, as well as loss from shipping fleets, and of course, our obsession with too much plastic to begin with. Read more here at Plastic Oceans. Microfibres from synthetic clothing, microbeads from skincare products, and plastic nurdles (pre-production plastic pallets) also get washed out to sea, some of it invisible to the naked eye. A lot of this smaller plastic debris ends up in the stomachs of plankton at the bottom of the food chain, which is then ingested by fish, and eventually ends up on dinner plates around the world.

Photo credit: Algalita Marine Research and Education via The Conversation (2010 - 2017) Creative Commons License

Research also indicates that plastic in the ocean attracts chemicals already in the water, and once the plastic is ingested by marine life, these chemicals are absorbed by the fish host (Barclay, 2013, The Salt). To read more, visit the article here.

Here's a smart infographic about what's really in your seafood, courtesy of Plastic Oceans (2017).

So, should we avoid eating seafood? Not necessarily. According to the article cited above by Barclay (2013), avoiding the largest fattiest fish may be a sensible option, or at least limiting your consumption of these species, as well as having seafood no more than twice a week. Things you can do: - reduce your use of plastic, especially disposable single-use plastics - dispose of litter carefully - pick up litter when out and about - spread awareness of this issue with others - lobby organisations and governments to regulate single-use plastic use - join a local and/or international organisation that strives to educate and clean up our oceans Were you aware of the size of the plastic pollution problem in our oceans before reading this article? Will it make you think differently about accepting single-use plastic items in the future? Please drop us a comment, we'd love to hear from you. Thanks, Joy