UK Edition
Sir David Attenborough: The world’s oceans are becoming a ‘toxic soup’ of industrial waste and plastic
The world’s oceans are turning into a ‘toxic soup’ of industrial waste and plastic, putting the future of humanity at risk, Sir David Attenborough has warned.
In the final episode of the BBC’s groundbreaking wildlife documentary Blue Planet II, which airs this Sunday, the true scale of man’s impact on the planet is laid bare.
The filmmakers show the horrifying death of an albatross, whose gut was punctured by a plastic toothpick, as well as the contents of chick’s stomach - a lethal cocktail of polythene bags and plastic food wrappers.
Elsewhere an autopsy on dolphin showed that the young female had high levels of man-made toxins in her tissues, which probably led to her death.
Dolphins are at the top of the food chain and experts now believe that adult animals are ingesting so much plastic that the calf may have been contaminated by her own mother’s milk.
Sir David said: “Since its invention some 100 years ago, plastic has become an integral part of our daily lives, but every year some eight million tons of it ends up in the ocean, and there it can be lethal.
“While filming Blue Planet II the crews found plastic in every ocean. Even in the most remote locations.
“Once in the ocean, plastic breaks down into tiny fragments, micro plastics. Along with all industrial chemicals which have drained into the ocean these form a potentially toxic soup.
“Industrial pollution and the discarding of plastic waste must be tackled for the sake of all life in the ocean.
“Surely we have a responsibility to care for our planet. The future of humanity and indeed all life on earth, now depends on us.”
Each year more than 300 million tons of plastic is produced globally, and 10 per cent will end up in the sea.
In the worst affected ocean areas, there are over one million pieces of plastic for every square mile and it is estimated that there is now a 1:2 ratio of plastic to plankton and, left unchecked, plastic will outweigh fish by 2050.
In the final episode of Blue Planet II, the filming team travelled to the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia, 900 miles North of Antarctica, which is home to a large albatross colony.
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has been studying the colony for decades but has noticed rapid declines as increasing amounts of plastic have entered the oceans. The birds can become entangled in fishing gear and drown, and they also accidentally feed plastic to their chicks.
Lucy Quinn, of the BAS, said: “It’s only through looking at long term studies that you get a sense of these creatures, and the albatrosses here have over the past 10 years been in decline.
“Albatrosses have the ability to cough up food which they can’t digest and from that we can tell what they’ve been eating. A healthy albatross chick should really be having things like squid, so we find the squid beaks that come out of the pellet and also fish, so we can find fish bones.
“We found a plastic bag, some food packaging, it looks like rice. Luckily for this chick he has managed to get this plastic out of its stomach.”
However another chick bird was not so lucky.
“Unfortunately there was a plastic toothpick which had gone through the stomach,” said Miss Quinn. “Something as small as that has managed to kill the bird.”
Sir David added: “For years we thought that the oceans were so vast and the inhabitants so infinitely numerous that nothing we could do could have an effect upon them.
“But now we know that was wrong. The oceans are under threat now as never before in human history.”
- The final episode of Blue Planet, Our Blue Ocean, airs at 8pm on BBC One on Sunday. iPlayer viewers will also be able to download the episode in UltraHD, the first time a BBC programme has ever been seen in such a format.