Invaders on rafts of rubbish

PLASTIC could help unwelcome marine creatures cross oceans, scientists have warned.

Some of the millions of tons of plastic in the sea accumulates as ‘rafts’ which provide havens for the animals. Scientists at Williams College, Massachusetts, report in the journal Science finding nearly 300 Japanese marine animals washed up in North America and Hawaii. They studied species carried on debris, from large buoys and plastic fragments, created by the 2011 tsunami in Japan.