Grim, graphic proof of the doom plastic spells for wildlife

Photo by Chris Jordan. via Treehugger.

If you’re not worried yet about the effect of plastics on the environment, these pictures should do the trick. And if they don’t, you’d better check your heart to make sure it’s not made of plastic.

We’ve written before about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an “island” of floating plastic rubbish in the North Pacific about halfway between California and Japan. The patch spins in a gyre of ocean currents.

It has been variously described as the size of Greenland or twice the size of Texas, but no one really knows, because in addition to the visible debris, much of the patch consists of tiny particles of plastic floating beneath the surface.

Scientists have visited the patch a few times to assess the damage to sea life, but I haven’t seen them bring back anything as powerful as these photographs by Chris Jordan.

Jordan visited the Midway Atoll and took pictures of the corpses of seabird chicks who died after being fed plastic by foraging parents. Once upon a time, if you were hungry and you saw something colorful floating in the ocean, it was likely to be organic, part of a plant or animal, and likely safe for a scavenger to eat. So it’s hard to fault the parents. But times have changed.

Jordan captures the remains of chicks who died with cigarette lighters in their stomachs, bottle caps, pen lids, earplugs, netting, and other objects that remained trapped in their digestive tracts. Jordan says he did not move any of the objects, but captured the remains just as they appear on Midway.

There’s a slideshow at Green Planet, plus more images and a blog of Jordan’s Midway Journey, which also includes some less tragic–even beautiful–videos of the islands, at chrisjordan.com.