How little plastic does it take to kill marine animals? Scientists have answers

Ocean plastic kills sea creatures. It can obstruct, perforate or twist their airways and gastrointestinal tracts.

Now new research shows it takes just 6 pieces of ingested rubber the size of a pencil eraser to kill most sea birds.

For marine mammals, 29 pieces of any kind of plastic — hard, soft, rubber or fishing equipment — are often lethal.

It’s the first time researchers have quantified how much and what kind of plastic — soft, hard, rubber or fishing debris — is needed to kill a bird, marine mammal or a turtle.

“Seeing the particularly small thresholds for rubber and seabirds, for example, that just six pieces of rubber, each smaller on average than the size of a pea was enough to kill 90% of sea birds that ingested it … That was particularly surprising to me,” said Erin Murphy, a