Plastic pollution putting killer whales and sharks most at risk

By Stephen Beech

Plastic pollution is worse because of global warming, with killer whales and sharks most vulnerable, new research warns.

Increased toxicity from waste plastic in a warmer

A four-meter basking shark washed up dead on a beach at Portgordon, near Buckie in Scotland, last month, was found to have plastic in its stomach.

The new report, by scientists from Imperial College London , is calling for "urgent" action to avoid irreversible ecological damage by stemming the tide of microplastics entering the environment.

The Imperial team says

That is done by speeding up plastic breakdown into microplastics - microscopic fragments of plastic - spreading them vast distances, and increasing exposure and impact within the environment.

And the team warns that the impact is set