Plastic threat to fish in deep sea off the west

ALMOST three quarters of deep-water fish from the northwest Atlantic have ingested microplastics, an NUI Galway report claims.

The study was carried out on the stomach content of 223 fish and represents one of the highest frequencies of microplastic in fish globally.

Microplastics are plastic fragments that come from the breakdown of larger items. Other sources may be waste-water effluents carrying fibres from clothes.

However, the fish were taken from a warm core eddy, a circular current in the Northwest Atlantic. These are thought to accumulate microplastics, and the sampled fish may have originated from a particularly polluted part of the Atlantic.

Due to their low density, most of these microplastics float at the sea surface which is where deep-water fish go to feed on plankton at night.

The microplastics, found in 73% of the fish, were mostly black or blue fibres. One of the inspected fish, which was 4.5cm in size, had 13 microplastics in its stomach.

Older studies have shown many marine animals can ingest microplastics.

ALMOST three-quarters of deep-sea fish have swallowed plastic, according to new research by scientists from NUI Galway.

It goes without saying that these findings are extremely worrying. In our complacency, we may be tempted to think that marine pollution doesn’t really affect us and that it is a matter for the likes of Greenpeace or similar organisations.

But it is now clear that the reality is very different. The bottom line is this is an environmental problem that could end up on our dinner plates at any point in the near future.

Perhaps this is the wake-up call that we need. There are many ways of protecting this big old planet of ours. Not disposing of plastic in an irresponsible manner is one of them.