Topping Up on Toxins

If eating tiny bits of plastic wasn’t enough of a problem already, then the fact that plastics can absorb toxins and other harmful chemicals should be. Plastics floating in the ocean currents are magnets for harmful poisons and other contaminants drifting in the water column. The most commonly used plastics are also the most absorptive. That means the plastic bag you’ve used to carry your take-away dinner will most likely absorb harmful chemicals once it enters the ocean.

When marine life inadvertently ingests the contaminated plastics and then integrates the chemicals into their tissues, in a process called “bioaccumulation”, the bodily functions of that animal can be compromised. Eating contaminated plastics has been shown to disrupt reproduction, growth hormone development, and other biological processes in marine organisms.

Because these pollutants are not usually bioavailable, animals have a difficult time processing and eliminating them from their tissues. So, the more plastics that are ingested, the more contaminants build up in the body over time. The more contaminated fish an individual eats, the more toxins in the body and the more at-risk humans are to these toxins reaching harmful or even lethal doses. This process is also called “biomagnification”.