Pollution is so prevalent in water bodies now that fish can't help but eat it. Many perch larvae preferred eating the tiny plastic pieces, and those that did often exhibited stunted growth and very sluggish behavior.
The findings, published in the journal Science, strengthen prior research calling for a reduction of plastic waste and a ban of microbeads in personal care products. Microbeads can be found in everything from toothpaste to facial cleansers, and are so small that they pass unfiltered through sewage treatment plants.
When the perch were placed with a natural predator, pike, they ignored the smell of these predators and were caught and eaten more than four times quicker than perch that did not consume the plastic. By eating perch that previously consumed plastics, the pike also wound up ingesting plastic. This can go on up the food chain in the wild. All of the perch exposed to microplastic particles were dead within 48 hours.
The findings, published in the journal Science, strengthen prior research calling for a reduction of plastic waste and a ban of microbeads in personal care products. Microbeads can be found in everything from toothpaste to facial cleansers, and are so small that they pass unfiltered through sewage treatment plants.
When the perch were placed with a natural predator, pike, they ignored the smell of these predators and were caught and eaten more than four times quicker than perch that did not consume the plastic. By eating perch that previously consumed plastics, the pike also wound up ingesting plastic. This can go on up the food chain in the wild. All of the perch exposed to microplastic particles were dead within 48 hours.
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