A study by the University of Plymouth is to be carried in an effort to determine the effects that plastic packaging has on marine life.
The university's biologists and environmental scientists have just been awarded around £180,000 (€250,000) to try to discover whether microscopic pieces of the 100 million tonnes of plastics produced each year have any undesirable effects on marine life in general and seafoods such as shellfish.
A recently completed pilot study by Dr Richard Thompson of the University of Plymouth's School of Biological Sciences, working with colleagues at Plymouth and the University of Southampton, showed that tiny bits of plastic were building up in sandy beaches and muddy estuaries around the UK.
Dr Thompson said: "We have shown that small pieces of plastic are eaten and using a microscope we can even see them in the guts of barnacles and other marine organisms. Along with my colleagues in the study, Tamara Galloway of the School of Biological Sciences and Professor Steve Rowland of the School of Environmental Sciences, and Dr Andrea Russell of the University of Southampton, I now plan to determine whether leaching of chemicals from discarded plastics causes any unwanted effects on the wildlife."
The fact that plastic packaging, the majority of which is derived from the food and beverage industry, could be seeping back into the food chain is an irony that The money to support this research has been awarded to the University of Plymouth by the Leverhulme Trust.