
A new disease caused solely by plastics has been discovered in seabirds.
Scientists at the Natural History Museum in London say that the birds identified as having the disease, named plasticosis, have scarred digestive tracts from ingesting waste.
Researchers say it is the first recorded instance of plastic-induced fibrosis in wild animals.
Plastic pollution is becoming so prevalent that bird scarring is widespread across different ages, according to a study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.
Young birds were found to have the disease, and it is thought that chicks were being fed plastic pollution by their parents accidentally bringing it back into their food.
Scientists, including the Natural History Museum’s Dr Alex Bond and Dr Jennifer Lavers, studied flesh-footed shearwaters from Australia’s Lord Howe Island to look at the relationship between levels of ingested plastic and the proventriculus organ – the first part of a bird’s stomach.
They found that the more plastic a bird had ingested, the more scarring it had. The disease can lead to the gradual breakdown of tubular glands in the proventriculus. Losing these glands can make birds more vulnerable to infection and parasites and affect their ability to digest food and absorb some vitamins.
Researchers called the fibrotic disease plasticosis to clarify that it was caused by environmental plastic.
When birds ingest small pieces of plastic, they find that it inflames their digestive tract. Over time, the persistent inflammation causes tissues to become scarred and disfigured, affecting digestion, growth, and survival.
Natural materials found in bird stomachs, such as pumice stones, did not cause the same problems, leading scientists to label this a specifically plastic-caused disease.
Bond, principal curator in charge of birds at the Natural History Museum, said: “While these birds can look healthy on the outside, they’re not doing well on the inside. This study is the first time that stomach tissue has been investigated this way and shows that plastic consumption can cause serious damage to these birds’ digestive system.”
Though scientists have studied only one bird species in one part of the world, they believe it is likely that more species are affected, and they say more research is needed to find out how widespread plastics are.
They say the exposure of all organisms to plastic is inevitable because plastic emissions are increasing, and plastic pollution is becoming prevalent in all environments globally.
This problem has only emerged in recent decades but has not been widely studied. The researchers said: “Further, plastic ingestion has far-reaching and severe consequences, many of which we are only just beginning to document and understand fully.”
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