Plastic smells like food?

Did you know plastics in the oceans smell like food to some animals?

In 2016, researchers discovered seabirds are enticed into ocean plastics because they smell like food, not just look like food. Plastics in the ocean trap algae and microbes and they release volatile organic compounds (gasses from a wide range of both natural and synthetic substances) such as dimethyl sulfide which smells like food to sea animals and birds. Researchers from the University of California, Davis have discovered that certain birds have a strong sense of smell and seek out the chemical dimethyl sulfide in order to find prey.

If you smell your favorite food being cooked in the kitchen, you naturally go to the kitchen right? Sea creatures smell the tasty odor they think is “food” in the water and guide themselves towards the area - then eat the plastics which happen to also look like food. A recent study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found this same issue is occurring with sea turtles as well. They put turtles in a tank and delivered a series of airborne scents into the air through a pipe. The turtles responded to the smell of food and ocean plastics by sticking their noses out of the water to smell them.

Nearly 60 percent of all seabird species have plastic in their stomach and scientists predict that by 2050 nearly every single seabird species will have eaten plastic pieces. It’s been estimated that ocean plastic kills 100,000 marine mammals every year.

Everything in the natural world is connected.
Just reducing plastics any way we can would definitely help earth.