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Most sea turtles, whales and fish may have plastic in their bodies. To determine the prevalence of various forms and colours of this material in marine animals, Marga Rivas at the University of Almer铆a in Spain and her team analysed data from 112 studies published in the past decade.

These looked for microplastics, fragments less than 5 millimetres in size, and larger bits of plastic in marine specimens globally.

Of the studies, 80 examined the gastrointestinal tracts of animals to see what they had ingested. The others also looked at wider animal tissues to identify plastics that end up in other parts of the body.

After examining all of the data, Rivas and her team concluded that 66 per cent of sea turtles have white-coloured macro- and microplastics in their systems, while 55 per cent have a distinct class of plastic called microfibres, which are shed by some fabrics.

The high prevalence of white plastic in turtles was unsurprising, says Rivas, given that plastic of this colour 鈥� particularly ones larger than 5mm may resemble jellyfish, a large part of the animals鈥� diets.

Microfibres were also present in 80 per cent of cetaceans 鈥� a group of aquatic mammals that includes whales and dolphins 鈥� and white macro- and microplastics in 38 per cent of them.

The researchers also concluded that clear fibre microplastics are probably the most common form of this waste that is ingested by large marine animals globally.

Rivas and her colleagues also discovered that the animals with the highest rates of plastic ingestion were those in the Mediterranean and the north-east Indian Ocean.

鈥淭he Mediterranean is the most contaminated sea in the world, so we expected to find these results,鈥� says Rivas.

Marine plastic pollution has increased roughly 10-fold since 1980, and Rivas says the problem is exacerbated by inadequate water treatment systems.

In parts of India and the south-east Mediterranean, wastewater isn鈥檛 adequately treated or recycled, she says. This means that microfibres shed by fabrics in washing machines,聽and larger pieces of rubbish, enter the sea.

鈥淚t鈥檚 possible to introduce management strategies to control these huge threats,鈥� says Rivas.

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