Scientists Discover Coral Likes the Taste of Plastic Too – But That’s Really Not a Good Thing

A team of scientists recently made a staggering discovery about why fish are eating plastics – finding that it wasn’t just accidental, but that fish actually like the smell of plastic and, therefore, are drawn to eating it. Unfortunately, according to a new study, it isn’t only fish who are making this choice. Corals eat plastic too and – and it’s also because it tastes good to them.

The fascinating and disturbing discovery comes from a new research from Duke University that was published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin. The research was conducted by Austin S. Allen and Alexander C. Seymour whose two-part study used corals collected from waters off the North Carolina coast. What they found was that corals consume plastic because it “just plain tastes good” and that the creatures prefer to eat microbe-free microplastics.

In the first part of the study, Allen and Seymour offered small amounts of eight different kinds of microplatics to the corals together with similarly sized items like clean sand. They found that the corals ate all kinds of plastic – and mostly ignored the sand. In the second part, they separated the corals and offered them the same amount of plastic, unfouled for one group and with a bacteria biofilm on for the other. The corals ate both kinds but preferred the clean type by a three-to-one margin.

“Corals in our experiments ate all types of plastics but preferred unfouled microplastics by a threefold difference over microplastics covered in bacteria,” said Allen. “This suggests the plastic itself contains something that makes it tasty.”

To identify what additives specifically might be responsible for the good taste of plastic, as judged by corals, and whether they work similarly with other species, the issue will have to be researched further.

Most marine animals that ingest dangerous plastics were found to do so accidentally or because the pieces of plastic look like prey. Corals, however, have no eyes, and so they cannot be enticed to consume plastic visually.

Due to the fact that plastic is mostly indigestible, once ingested by animals, it can lead to intestinal blockages, release chemical compounds into their bodies and the surrounding environment, create a false sense of fullness, or reduce energy reserves in the animal. Some scientists have likened plastic to junk food – showing that marine life likes to fill up on it but plastic provides no nutritional value and ultimately can be harmful to their health. As Allen underlined, about eight percent of the plastic ingested by the corals in the study “was still stuck in their guts” even after 24 hours.

The discovery is one more alarming reminder that our obsession with single-use plastic affects the environment and wildlife in countless ways, a huge percent of which we are not even remotely aware of yet. “Ultimately, the hope is that if we can manufacture plastic so it unintentionally tastes good to these animals, we might also be able to manufacture it so it intentionally tastes bad,” Seymour said. “That could significantly help reduce the threat these microplastics pose.”

While that might be a solution to the question of marine animals eating plastic, it doesn’t solve the fact that the oceans are being inundated with our plastic waste. It is up to all of us to stop the constant stream of plastic into the ocean, something that can be achieved by simply avoiding single-use items in your everyday life. To learn how to use less plastic, check out One Green Planet’s #CrushPlastic campaign!

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