Animal Digestible Food Packaging Initiative

The abstract of a December 2, 2021 Nature Communications study https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27188-6 by researchers with the US Smithsonian Institution, Connecticut Williams College and Mystic Seaport Museum, University of California San Diego, Ocean Voyages Institute, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and US University of Washington report on “… the introduction of an immense floating plastic habitat in the open ocean … the neopelagic community … composed of pelagic species, evolved to live on floating marine substrates … marine animals, and coastal species, once assumed incapable of surviving long periods of time on the high seas … The persistence of coastal species at sea presents a paradigm shift in our understanding of marine biogeography … we have limited understanding of the ecology of neopelagic communities … rafting events that were rare in the past could alter ocean ecosystems and change invasion dynamics on a global scale, furthering the urgent need to address the diverse and growing effects of plastic pollution on land and sea …” #PlasticWaste #SingleUsePlastic #NeopelagicCommunity #FlotatingPlasticDebris @smithsonian