Forschung identifiziert tödliche Plastikdosis: weniger als drei Würfelzucker für Seevögel; Plastik für Meeresschildkröten im Wert von etwas mehr als zwei Baseballbällen; und etwa die Menge an Plastik eines Fußballballs für Meeressäugetiere hat eine Todeswahrscheinlichkeit von 90 %. Die Studie basierte auf 10.412 Tierautopsien.
https://oceanconservancy.org/newsroom/press-release/2025/11/17/ocean-animals-ingested-plastics-study/
6 Kommentare
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2415492122
From the linked article:
Groundbreaking **Research Identifies Lethal Dose of Plastics** for Seabirds, Sea Turtles and Marine Mammals: “It’s Much Smaller Than You Might Think”
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today released a new study, “A quantitative risk assessment framework for mortality due to macroplastic ingestion in seabirds, marine mammals, and sea turtles.” Led by Ocean Conservancy researchers, the peer-reviewed paper is the most comprehensive study yet to quantify the extent to which a range of plastic types — from soft, flexible plastics like bags and food wrappers; to balloon pieces; to hard plastics ranging from fragments to whole items like beverage bottles — result in the death of seabirds, sea turtles, and marine mammals that consume them.
**The study reveals that, on average, consuming less than three sugar cubes’ worth of plastics for seabirds like Atlantic puffins (which measure approximately 28 centimeters, or 11 inches, in length); just over two baseballs’ worth of plastics for sea turtles like Loggerheads (90 centimeters or 35 inches); and about a soccer ball’s worth of plastics for marine mammals like harbor porpoises (1.5 meters, or 60 inches), has a 90% likelihood of death**. At the 50% mortality threshold, the volumes are even more startling: consuming less than one sugar cube’s worth of plastics kills one in two Atlantic puffins; less than half a baseball’s worth of plastics kills one in two Loggerhead turtles; and less than a sixth of a soccer ball kills one in two harbor porpoises.
To arrive at their findings, Ocean Conservancy scientists analyzed the results of **10,412 necropsies, or animal autopsies**, conducted worldwide in which cause of death and data on plastic ingestion were known. Of the animals studied, 1,537 were seabirds representing 57 species; 1,306 were sea turtles representing all seven species of sea turtles; and 7,569 were marine mammals across 31 species.
Americans will do anything to avoid using the metric system huh
Don’t we have like a spoon of plastic in our brain? What’s the lethal dose for humans?
Damn, this is like, a quarter of whats in my balls!
But, how much plastic is in a soccer ball? I don’t get it…
So, I’m not knowledgeable enough, but is the current situation, when the relatively valuable energy source of plastics cannot yet be accessed by a sufficiently widespread life-form, comparable to the time when no bacteria existed to decompose plants into organic matter and plants then deposited over each other and turned to coal?
Did the same thing happen with plankton that settled on the bottom of the sea and turned to oil under pressure, or was the mechanism different?
And, if this were true, the plastic deposits (if they are plentiful enough) would eventually settle on the ocean floor and turn back into oil over a long time span?
Eventually, a life-form emerges capable of breaking them down and extracting the energy.
Isn’t this what we’re counting on?
Unfortunately, then plastics will lose many of their advantages to us, because they’ll suddenly become „compostable“, and we’ll have to devise newer, even more resistant materials…
(While this all is happening, of course a great many species will perish because they won’t be able to adapt to the sudden profusion of plastics in the environment…)