THEY’RE CAUSING CARNAGE IN THE OCEANS

We teND to believe that the sea is mostly pure and clean. We feel it is invigorating and health-giving. But, then, we cannot peer deep down into it. We cannot see through what Moby-Dick’s creator Herman Melville called ‘the ocean’s skin’.

Which means we cannot see the terrible damage we are doing to the waters that make up 71 per cent of our planet’s surface.

the fact is that eight million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans annually. everything from plastic bags — against which this newspaper has campaigned so admirably and successfully — to large chunks of industrial plastic, and vast quantities of these microbeads, ends up in the sea. in the u.s. alone, it has been estimated that 18 trillion microbeads are discharged into the sea every year.

Nicola Hodgins, head of science and research at Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), notes that a staggering 100,000 marine mammals die each year as a result of plastic pollution. she calls it, quite simply, carnage.

Plastic is consumed by animals from turtles to seabirds and an estimated 663 marine species are affected by plastic pollution.

A recent study showed that 90 per cent of all seabirds have plastic in their stomachs. there, it can cause internal bleeding and starvation, and the WDC estimates one million seabirds die this way annually. Albatross chicks, fed plastic debris by their unwitting parents, starve to death because their bellies are so full of the stuff, which they cannot digest.

tiny beads of plastic are even ingested and retained by molluscs such as mussels and oysters. Belgian toxicologist Colin Janssen has found that, on average, each gram of mussel flesh contains one particle of plastic.

And while some fish are able to excrete the particles from their bodies, the united Nations environment Programme says that 30 per cent of all fish have plastic in their bodies. By 2050, there will be more plastic by weight in the oceans than fish.

Not all of this plastic is microbeads, of course. Much of it has been broken down over time into smaller pieces or ‘microplastics’ — through exposure to the sun, weathering and biodegradation. this process of breakdown exposes the sea and its wildlife to toxic chemicals used in plastic-making and so compounds the polluting effect.

Microbeads are, in effect, ready-formed microplastics. As such, they are an immediate source of toxicity, as they carry and release dangerous chemicals such as phthalates, which have been linked to breast cancer, reproductive failures and metabolic problems. Once consumed, the beads release the chemicals in the stomach, and ‘can wreak havoc on the hormone systems of mammals, including whales’, says Rob Lott, of the WDC.

StuDies show the Mediterranean has up to 892,000 pieces of microplastic per square kilometre, and scientists believe that the six-fold decrease in the fin whale population of the Med over the past 20 years may be attributed to reproductive failure due to this chain of effects.

Microbeads have exacerbated this problem to a terrible degree. they are so small that they are ingested by the organisms at the very starting point of the food chain.

Phytoplankton and zooplankton — the tiny plants and animals on which the rest of the ocean depends — ingest microbeads, mistaking them for fish eggs. these beads have been shown to inhibit the plankton’s feeding and its ability to reproduce, and can even directly poison and kill them.

Film shot at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, and released for the first time last month, shows plankton greedily swallowing microbeads, which fill their guts like footballs.

Yet the well-being of these tiny animals is vital if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences — because there is an inexorable knock-on effect as the plastic pollution works its way through the feeding chain.

We know that the world’s biggest animals, the baleen whales — such as the blue whale and the humpback — feed on minute organisms in the form of krill and copepods.

A recent study published by Canadian scientists at the Vancouver Aquarium is the first to try to quantify the damage caused by plastic during this process. it notes that a humpback whale eats 1.5 per cent of its body weight in krill and zooplankton every day. that means it could be consuming 300,000 microplastic particles daily.

What a terrible notion: that one of the earth’s most stupendous and sentient animals should be threatened by something so inconsequential. Worse still, these microplastics actually attract other pollutants, acting as what scientists call vectors.

industrial chemicals such as PCBs (used as coolants in electrical equipment) and flame-retardants (which protect furniture), wash into the sea, then stick to the microbeads’ rough and pitted surfaces, designed that way because the beads are meant to act as an abrasive polishing agent.

terrifyingly, each single bead or microplastic particle is up to one million times more able to absorb toxic chemicals than the water around it.

these particles carry their toxins with them into the food chain, and we eat the seafood — the oysters, the mussels, the lobsters and the fish — in which microbeads are found.

it is true that, as we do not normally eat the guts of fish, we may not eat the microbeads they have ingested. Yet we are almost certainly consuming the toxic chemicals that microbeads have passed into the fish’s bloodstream. And when we eat shellfish, we’ll be swallowing the microbeads, as they have been ingested as well.

even if you don’t eat fish, you will be affected by the microbead menace. A quarter of fish caught globally enter the food chain in other ways — including in feed for pigs and poultry. in China, scientists have even found microbeads in table salt.

No one knows what the long-term effect of microbeads will be. this is one big experiment, in which we are the guinea pigs.

But the greatest worry is what they are doing to the rest of the planet, on which we depend for our survival. Professor Richard Lampitt, of the world-renowned National Oceanography Centre in southampton, and his colleague Katsiaryna Pabortsava, are part of a team conducting extensive surveys in the Atlantic, sampling deep-sea sediment for microplastics.

there, the team has discovered microplastic falling to the seabed like ‘marine snow’.

the extent of Professor Lampitt’s work — his sampling takes him as far as the Falkland islands — is a reflection of how seriously the scientific establishment is taking the problem. He tells me: ‘the issue of concern is how microplastics and their associated chemicals affect ecosystem structure and function.

‘these effects may not be immediately obvious, but can be very profound and have far-reaching implications.’

Like many people in Britain, i am passionate about the sea. My greatgrandfather was a fisherman in Whitby, North Yorkshire. i swim in the sea every day of the year in southampton, where i live — and on high summer days, such as during this week, i am joined by scores of other swimmers.

they, too, will have reconnected with the ocean’s natural wonders.

OVeR the past few weeks, i have watched thousands of gannets, our largest sea birds, diving off Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth in scotland. i’ve seen harbour porpoises feeding in the waters of torbay, and glinting mackerel caught in their hundreds off the south Coast as the sea demonstrates its extraordinary resilience.

it is heart-breaking to think that the actions of corporations seeking to maximise profits may be endangering all of this without our even knowing it. But we do have the power to change things. Contrary to what some manufacturers seem to believe, we are not passive consumers. We can vote with our money.

so don’t buy products with microbeads and ask your local shop or supermarket to stop stocking them.

the sea’s future — and perhaps even your own — depends on it.