birding-aus

Plastics and oceanic birds

To: "Birding Aus" <>
Subject: Plastics and oceanic birds
From: "Kurtis Lindsay" <>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 14:00:37 +1000
A book I recently read entitled "The World without us" by Alan Weisman has a whole chapter on the issue of plastic in the ocean and the environmental impacts of it. The following is an excerpt from the chapter "Polymers are forever"... "His personal worst was astudy on fulmar carcasses washed ashore on North Sea coastlines.Ninety-five percent had plastic in their stomachs-an average of 44 pieces per bird. A proportional amount in a human being would weigh nearly five pounds." The chapter then goes on to discuss the types of plastic pollutants in the ocean and the effects they have on all organisms in the food chain, all the way down to tiny zooplankton which have been known to ingest microscopic plastic fragments. The scary thing about many man made polymers is that no one knows how long they take to decompose, if at all.

By reading this book you're in for an eye opening experience, although by the end of it you'll probably find youself in a state of depression brought on by an indepth look at the distaster which the worst plague species to have ever roamed the planet has brought upon itself.

Regards,

Kurtis Lindsay




<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU