Fish Are Eating Lots of Plastic (washingtonpost.com) 149
Matthew Savoca, writing for the Washington Post: As you bite down into a delicious piece of fish, you probably don't think about what the fish itself ate -- but perhaps you should. More than 50 species of fish have been found to consume plastic trash at sea (alternative source - a little old). This is bad news, not only for fish but potentially also for humans who rely on fish for sustenance. Fish don't usually die as a direct result of feeding on the enormous quantities of plastic trash floating in the oceans. But that doesn't mean it's not harmful for them. Some negative effects that scientists have discovered when fish consume plastic include reduced activity rates and weakened schooling behavior, as well as compromised liver function. Most distressingly for people, toxic compounds that are associated with plastic transfer to and bioaccumulate in fish tissues. This is troubling because these substances could further bioaccumulate in people who consume fish that have eaten plastic. Numerous species sold for human consumption, including mackerel, striped bass and Pacific oysters, have been found with these toxic plastics in their stomachs. So why are fish eating plastic? According to studies cited in the report, plastic debris may smell attractive to marine organisms.
Plastic Tastes Like Food (Score:1)
> So why are fish eating plastic? According to studies cited in the report, plastic debris may smell attractive to marine organisms.
I believe it. My cat loves to lick those plastic shopping bags from the grocery. According to the interwebz he is not alone, its because they taste like meat to some cats. Fortunately he has not yet tried to eat any of them.
Re:Plastic Tastes Like Food (Score:5, Insightful)
Some plastics look like jellyfish. It's a known problem for sea turtles that prey on them.
Re: evolution (Score:2)
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I have always been a little leery of eating fish. Whatever is in the water, is in the fish. Plastic is actually the least of my worries.
Dire Implications (Score:4, Funny)
This is troubling because these substances could further bioaccumulate in people who consume fish that have eaten plastic.
This could be a disaster for the cannibals!
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It's great that you're here to make such witty "jokes" out of such a serious (damning in fact) situation that affects the tenuous future of life on Earth. Here's another ditty, kill yourself.
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Simple fix, let's just eat all the cannibals.
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Simple fix, let's just eat all the cannibals.
I really hate to do that. After all, they're such fine young cannibals!
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From a gastronomical standpoint
So, not harmful? (Score:1, Troll)
From the fine article:
The next big question that it raises is whether plastic-derived contaminants can be transferred from plastic-eating fish to fish-eating humans.
If eating the plastic doesn't harm the fish, and causes no harm to the people that eat the fish, then why is this in the "health and science" section of the Washington Post? I mean, this is neat and all but is this something someone other than a biologist might find interesting?
I think that perhaps they should have held on to this until they actually figured out if the plastic eating habits actually do harm. But then again, if they saw nothing so far then haven't they already proven
Re:So, not harmful? (Score:5, Informative)
Some negative effects that scientists have discovered when fish consume plastic include reduced activity rates and weakened schooling behavior, as well as compromised liver function.
Thus your question is based on a false assumption.
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It would be more likely for a fish to form a symbiotic relationship with one of the microbes that can already digest plastics. Lots of bacteria in the human digestive tract, for example.
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There's also the issue of biomagnification--bioaccumulation moving up the food chain.
Small fish consume small amounts of plastic.
Larger fish consume many small fish over time, consuming (and accumulating) larger and larger amounts of plastic.
Higher-level predators--Dolphins, polar bears, whales, people--eat these larger fish, accumulating even more plastic.
The small fish may never consume enough plastic for it to be a huge deal, but it might be a really big deal for the polar bear.
Mercury is one of the clas
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Yep, that could be a problem. Would be nice if someone did a study on that. The fact that such a study has not been done was mentioned.
What we have here is a half of a study. I'm not sure if this is a call to action, as in telling people to stop using plastic or something, or a fundraising effort of the "OMG, pollution!" kind.
I'm reminded of a "study" of some condors that showed elevated lead levels in their blood. This was used as a call to get rid of lead based ammunition in the hunting areas were the
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If eating the plastic doesn't harm the fish, and causes no harm to the people that eat the fish, then why is this in the "health and science" section of the Washington Post?
As others have already pointed out, plastic does harm the fish, even if it doesn't kill them outright. Not only does a lot of the plastic come as very small fragments, which may well pass into the bloodstream, but they also give off harmful chemicals. Since much of the plastic debris in the ocean has been floating around for decades, part of it will contain chemicals that are now banned. The problem of accumulation is exacerbated by the fact that many of the fish we eat, have eaten smaller, that have eaten
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If eating the plastic doesn't harm the fish, and causes no harm to the people that eat the fish, then why is this in the "health and science" section of the Washington Post?
From the fine article:
But that doesn’t mean it’s not harmful for them. Some negative effects that scientists have discovered when fish consume plastic include reduced activity rates and weakened schooling behavior, as well as compromised liver function.
I know this was buried way deep into the article on the second paragraph, but obviously you didn't get that far.
As an American who's born the brunt (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're an environmentalist then you've got to take care of the economy first. Otherwise the vast majority of people will ignore it in favor of more pressing concerns (rent, food, etc). Does that make the working class short sighted? You damn well bet it does. It's hard not being short sighted when you live paycheck to paycheck.
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It's your problem because many other people are in a similar position, resulting in a similar attitude. This means there is nowhere near enough political pressure to actually solve this problem and others like it. Which does, in fact, negatively affect your highness in many different ways.
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You apparently lack an ability to comprehend a very clear and basically solid argument. Was it too abstract for you? I'm guessing you don't have a job that requires critical thinking. Or you're just some low-budget right-wing corporatist troll.
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Yes, they really are that self-indulged and thoughtless. You think the Krotch brothers give a shit about the future? Those geriatric old fucks want to essentially destroy everything now so that the world dies with them. Because they're so old, they need this to happen fastly.
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That's the honest short-term view most people feel - including myself. When ocean life starts to struggle to survive in the plastic soup we're stirring up for them, however, all so we can have water bottles and other throwaway junk to make life faster and easier so we can screw around more, it'll become everyone's short-term food problem as prices skyrocket and push your budget over the edge.
You're missing the point (Score:2)
If I let the environment go to hell tomorrow so I can make it through today I'm still ahead by one day. By 'everyone's' problem you mean what's left of the middle class. That's the
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The money doesn't come from you, it comes from the people that employ you. Even if they try to say they can't afford to pay you as much as result, that's a lie.
The stock market has a huge influence on this. A small private corporation only has to pay its employees and CEO a salary and cover operational expenses. A publicly traded corporation needs corporate profit to survive and pay its shareholders money time and again. They get this extra money by squeezing everything dry from top to bottom - from buy
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You're right that these are a waste of money... but soda and (crappy) beer are remarkably cheap are hypothetically the only indulgences left in this guy's life. Switching to tap water will save him a couple hundred dollars a year (0.5% of his two minimum wage full time jobs), not really improving his financial situation, while significantly diminishing his quality of life.
Our current political situation is largely due to your sort of thinking, where people living in the relative lap of luxury are telling th
Re:As an American who's born the brunt (Score:5, Insightful)
Low wages and precarious employment are a very pressing issue indeed.
However, the main issue with environmental concerns is that although they're caused by consumerism, e.g. millions of tonnes of toxic plastics from food packaging dumped into the ocean, the solutions aren't more consumerism. Ordinary people can't shop their way out of environmental pollution. The only way to reduce pollution in the face of consumerism is through government regulation, i.e. preventing corporations from "externalising" costs, i.e. not taking responsibility for the pollution they cause.
Governments can't require that other countries abide by their own environmental laws but they can refuse entry or place substantial import tariffs on goods that have a heavy environmental impact.
It'd work if the corporations responsible for the environmental damage weren't in control of our governments and environmental agencies (AKA regulatory capture).
Re: As an American who's born the brunt (Score:2)
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Maybe you could convince them if you weren't busy pissing all over them and assuming they're idiots.
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The bluest city in my blue state just removed the requirement that children be vaccinated to attend because of teh autism. They're really into healing crystals and homeopathy. Red states do not have a monopoly on stupidity.
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>If you're an environmentalist then you've got to take care of the economy first
We try, but the anti-environmentalists keep trying harder to fuck it up. Most environmentalists favor universal health care, strong public support for education and job training, as well as a social safety net. The so-called libertarians keep trying to fuck up both the environment, along with any hope of stability and autonomy for ordinary workers.
There is no easy solution to this complex problem, but we can start by ridicu
Re:As an American who's born the brunt (Score:5, Interesting)
60-80% of residents of the world's wealthiest nation live paycheck to paycheck regardless of the size of their paycheck because all they know how to do is consume ever more. That's also the reason why there's so much plastic for fish to eat. You can solve both problems the same way.
I live in California, one of the most expensive states, and spend $13K a year while maintaining an apartment and car. So don't tell me you have to live paycheck to paycheck on $30K.
Listen to yourself (Score:2)
Instead of asking yourself why you're only making $13/k a year you're looking down on folks struggling at $30k. That's exactly what your supposed to be doing, if you ask the ruling class. They've got you, me and everyone in the working class fighting among ourselves.
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I live in California, one of the most expensive states, and spend $13K a year while maintaining an apartment and car. So don't tell me you have to live paycheck to paycheck on $30K.
You're going to have to provide more details than that. Are you in some rent controlled apartment in SF that you've been living in for the last 30 years? Because you couldn't get a studio where I grew up for $13k a year. Hell, I moved away for college to nowheres-ville so I could afford to move out and my apartment rent (in the ghetto) would have consumed much of that $13k you spend on ALL your expenses somehow. And that was years ago. That same apartment in the ghetto now would consume basically all
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borne, not born.
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Your post is arguably selfish, but I can't say I disagree in the slightest.
I'm nearly 40, reasonably intelligent and I'm in a similar mental state as you, I am no longer perm employed, jobs seem hard to find, the economy and specifically tax codes (especially in my country) seem weighed AGAINST the average person.
To simply live a normal life IS becoming more difficult.
If I had cash coming out of my ass (so to speak) sure I'd be more careful with purchasing more sustainable products or buying green energy (w
Solidarity (Score:2)
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Most (not all) people live paycheck to paycheck because of poor life decisions: namely, having kids.
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This raises the question: is one short-sighted because he lives paycheck to paycheck, or does one live paycheck to paycheck because he is short-sighted?
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Our society, whose economy depends on ever increasing growth, has made the production of the next generation a poor life decision...
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You're not making sense.
It costs no extra time or money to bring a bag with you to the store to avoid getting new ones.
Reducing consumption and reusing things you have saves money.
Maybe it's not that your poverty is causing you to waste but that your waste is causing your poverty. In any case, why not reduce and reuse to save time and money if you aren't already?
Don't beat around the bush: it's Capitalism (Score:2)
So you're going to help environmentalists take care of capitalism? It is what is directly responsible for both low wages and mass pollution.
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Well, there's capital markets, art, literature, entertainment, science and medicine; aside from that, almost nothing.
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Look at you jiggling in your overstressed office chair because you thought you found an error in someone else's grammar, askance.
"Fish" is a collective noun, you nitwit. Fish as a concept. You can't count them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
You dunce.
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Grow up, asshole.
Yeah, I'll be mature like you from now on.
the correct word is "fishes.
If this were a biology website. As it is, the headline is correct.
If only you could lose weight as easily as you lose arguments, huh Heavy Chris?
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So, why would fish be any different?
As a tropical fish owner, fish refers to one specie and fishes refer to many species.
Re: Go fish... (Score:2)
âoeFishâ is a perfectly acceptable plural. Itâ(TM)s even in the dictionary.
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...packed into troll factories like sardines...
Jeez I hope that's not in plastic packaging.
Re:Cue the slavers (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, how dare there be regulations to prevent build up of plastics in ecosystems, and ultimately in human stomachs. What a crime. People should be free to pollute, because that's their Invisible Hand-given right, and anyone who says otherwise is a filthy Communist.
Now excuse me, there's a metric tonne of rotting fish guts I need to drop adjacent to a certain AC's property, because the Invisible Hand says it's fine to make other peoples' lives unhealthy, and there's nothing they should ever be allowed to do about it, except die quietly.
Re: Don't pollute. Don't eat fish. (Score:2)
Suspect vs obvious (Score:2)
People looking for a healthier diet should worry about plastic in fish indeed. But here we speak about suspected problems for which we have no much data.
On the other hand, we have a lot of data about unhealthy stuff that is very common in people diets: trans fats, refined sugar, fried food. First try to reduce that, and think about plastic in fish next.
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Screw healthy, just get plastic surgery.
It's OK (Score:1)
I had the chicken [youtube.com].
Yummology (Score:1)
I hear it tastes like plastic chicken.
(blank) (Score:2)
Post to undo moderation error.
Could be an Evolutionary Advantage (Score:2)
Think about it this way. Several fish are on their way to extinction due to being over-fished. If we were no long able to consume many of these fish, if they find a way to thrive, they will return to previous population levels in the ocean and we won't be predators any longer which give other species opportunities. At some point either the plastic will hopefully break down and be consumed or our species will die off at which point fish will out last us. If they don't thrive, so long and thanks for all t
So why are fish eating plastic? (Score:1)
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oysters? (Score:2)
Oysters aren't fish, they're not even vertebrates (nor chordates). And the original technical article (here: https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]) did NOT say that the oysters ate plastic, on the contrary, "The Pacific oysters came from aquaculture in urban bays and had anthropogenic debris composed entirely of fibers." (The scientists were not able to ID the fibers; could have been cotton, could have been polyester, or...) In fact, the vast majority of the "anthropogenic" materials the study found in fish
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Re: I have a solution (Score:1)
Sort of like you, creimer?
Actually, i digestible plastic may be a good strategy for you to not exceed that 1500 calorie per day target! Consider it!
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Perhaps he's creating a replacement for systemd. We can hope, right?