It is not uncommon for seabirds that reside in coastal areas with large amount of garbage (in ocean and on land) to ingest plastic pieces. Recent studies have shown that 90% of seabirds around the world consumes plastic trash and should plastic production continue to increase, all seabirds would be consuming plastic by 2050.

Much of the plastic trash from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch wash up on the shores of Midway Island each day. Midway Island is the home to 67-70% of the world’s Laysan albatross population and 34-39% of the world’s black-footed albatross. Albatrosses are one of the priority species of the World Wide Fund of Nature (WWF), and their diets comprise entirely of seafood. They fish by skimming their beaks across the water surface, where most plastic pieces are found due to buoyancy and light-weightedness, and ingest large amounts of these plastic pieces. Plastic pieces ingested by albatrosses include bottle caps, small pieces of plastic that have been broken down, and synthetic fibres from clothing. Many albatrosses die due to the toxins from the plastic they ingested or from the damage of their internal organs by sharp edged plastics they consumed. At times, the large amount of plastic present in their guts limits the space for food, hence they would die of malnutrition.

Albatrosses feed their young by transferring the food they scavenged, of which most consist of plastics. Out of the 1.5 million Laysan albatross population in Midway Island, it is estimated that one-third of the chicks die. This may be due to the inability of albatross chicks to regurgitate the plastics that their parent had mistakenly fed to them unlike the adult albatrosses. Albatross chicks may die from choking on the plastic pieces or of poisoning.

 

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Next, impacts on coral reefs.

Previously, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.