By Brianne Hogan / Source: Ecorazzi

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A new study reports that nine out of ten seabirds have eaten plastic, which has remained inside of them.

Well, this is depressing news.

A new study reports that nine out of ten seabirds have eaten plastic, which has remained inside of them.

The study, which was conducted by a team of Australian scientists, proves that far more seabirds are affected by ocean pollution than the previous report of 29%.

“It’s pretty astronomical,” study coauthor Denise Hardesty, a senior research scientist at the CSIRO, told the Guardian.

The problem is that, not surprisingly, the birds are mistaking plastic for food. “They think they’re getting a proper meal but they’re really getting a plastic meal,” she said. Hardesty reports finding an array of plastic items inside of unsuspecting birds, including an entire glowstick and a cigarette lighter.

Combining computer simulations of garbage and the birds, as well as their eating habits, Hardesty and her team were able to see where the worst problems are. It turns out that the biggest issue was not where there was the most garbage, but where there were the most amount of different species, particularly in Australia and New Zealand. Some areas in North America and Europe were better off.

The study concludes that matters will only get worse unless drastic measures are taken to remove plastic from our oceans.

“In the next 11 years we will make as much plastic as has been made since industrial plastic production began in the 1950s,” Hardesty said.

She also predicts that by 2050, basically all of the birds on the planet will have plastic inside of them.

American University environmental scientist Kiho Kim, who wasn’t part of the study but praised it, said that prediction “seems astonishingly high but probably not unrealistic.”

It’s also really, really sad.

Read more @ Ecorazzi