99% of Birds Predicted to Have Consumed Plastic By 2050

Most of plastic that has contaminated the oceans has ended in the bodies of seabirds such as albatrosses and penguins.

Research shows that about 90 percent of seabirds have eaten plastic, most of which remain in their gut. The scientists used literature published from 1962 to 2012 and used models to manipulate and manage the data.

Earlier, about 80 out of 135, or 59 percent, of seabird species were seen consuming plastic, from 1962 to 2012. Currently, about 90 percent of seabird species have been seen ingesting it.

It is found that the birds' biggest threat is in the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia.

"We predict, using historical observations, that 90 percent of individual seabirds have eaten plastic. This is a huge amount and really points to the ubiquity of plastic pollution," said Chris Wilcox, lead study author and senior research scientist at CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere.

The numbers are expected to spike and by 2050, 99 per cent of birds would have ingested it.

"Plastic in seabirds is ubiquitous, and it's increasing," Wilcox told BBC News.

"Every ocean is now filled with plastic," study co-author Van Sebille of the Imperial College London said. "Some have more than others, but what we found is that even the oceans that are not known for their plastic - they still have quite a bit of plastic and they can be where the harm is really done just because that's where all the birds live."

How can the epidemic be repaired? The solution is there, but would we be able to carry it out? If we can prevent plastic from polluting our seas, we can prevent birds from ingesting them.

"Because exposure to plastic turns out to be a strong predictor of how much plastic the birds have in them - that is, the more plastic they're exposed to, the more they ingest - this implies that if we reduce the amount of plastic going into the oceans, you would expect all these species to essentially respond," Wilcox said. "And this makes this problem different from something like climate change. It ought to be relatively easy to fix."

The study was published in the Aug. 31 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.