Almost all seabirds to have plastic in gut by 2050

11 September 2015

Researchers from CSIRO and Imperial College London have assessed how widespread the threat of plastic is for the world's seabirds and found the majority (60%) of species have plastic in their gut. The researchers predict that plastic ingestion will affect 99% of the world’s seabird species by 2050, based on current trends.
The scientists estimate that 90% of all seabirds alive today have eaten plastic of some kind. This includes bags, bottle caps, and plastic fibres from synthetic clothes, which have washed out into the ocean from urban rivers, sewers and waste deposits. An article about the research is published in PNAS (News Release CSIRO, 1 September 2015).
Click here for the news release.
Click here for the article in PNAS (884 kB).

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