Brief 7: Plastic in our food

As a direct result of plastic pollution being an issue in our oceans, the small pieces of plastic contaminate the food that we ultimately eat. This is something that not many people realise. Both the toxins from plastic and bits of small plastics are often mistaken for food by fish that they eat and as a result we then eat.

Scientists at Ghent University in Belgium recently calculated that shellfish lovers are eating up to 11,000 plastic fragments in their seafood each year.

'..it was reported that plastic was found in a third of UK-caught fish, including cod, haddock, mackerel and shellfish.'

'..plastic-eating fish are now showing up in supermarkets.'

'new research showed that common plastics attract a thin layer of marine algae, making them smell like nutritious food.'

'some studies have warned that microplastics, particularly at the nanoscale, could transfer from the guts to the meat'

'An estimated 10-12% of the global population relies on fisheries and aquaculture for their livelihood'

'Perhaps the shock of finding plastics returning to us on our dinner plates will help to bring that message home. “We’re on the edge of a major ecological disaster,"'

Whereas before people understood the environmental damages that plastic pollution was causing to our oceans and land, it's now becoming better understood that this problem leads directly back to our plates. With seafood now being contaminated by the plastics, we throw away; we are, as a result, ingesting the rubbish we once threw away.

Sources

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/feb/14/sea-to-plate-plastic-got-into-fish