Corals face 'slow starvation' from ingesting plastics pollution, experts find

EarthzineEarth Observation, Ecosystems

Coastal populations dumped 8m tonnes of plastic rubbish into the oceans in 2010, equivalent to five full shopping bags of debris for every foot of coastline in the nearly 200 countries surveyed. Photograph: Jurgen Freund/Corbis

Corals such as those found on the Great Barrier Reef consume ‘microplastics’ in the sea at the same rate as their normal food but cannot expel the fragments Continue reading…