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POST-MORTEM examinations on puffins found dead on a Scottish island have found their stomachs littered with small plastic pellets used in the manufacturing industry.
Known as ‘nurdles’, the pellets are the raw materials used to make plastic items and are a growing cause of pollution in the world’s oceans.
Accidental spills mean billions of these pellets find their way into the marine environment every year, with Scotland’s seas no exception.
Now conservationists have raised concern for the country’s seabirds after routine examinations of puffin corpses collected in the Firth of Forth revealed many of the birds had swallowed nurdles along with their usual prey.
Experts are still unsure of the full impact of nurdles on wildlife, but it is believed they may attract and become coated with other toxic pollutants in the sea.
This could increase the dangers to marine animals and birds mistaking the lentil-sized fragments for food.
Scientists dissecting dead birds collected on the Isle of May were initially puzzled when they discovered various coloured pellets alongside their more usual diet of sandeels.
It was environmentalists from the charity Fidra, who run the Great Nurdle Hunt campaign against plastic pollution, who explained what they were seeing.
Courtesy of scotsman.com
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