Disclaimer: plastic pollution may well kill way more animals besides seabirds and sea mammals. There are 6.20*10^14 wild fish and 1.00*10^20 wild marine arthropods, but only 6.75*10^11 wild mammals.
Summary
- 1 kg of plastic is emitted to the ocean per capita per year[1].
- 0.0001 seabirds and 0.00001 sea mammals are killed by marine plastic pollution per capita per year.
- 200 wild fish are caught per capita per year.
- The catch of wild fish is 2 M times as large as the number of seabirds, and 20 M times as large as the number of sea mammals killed by marine plastic pollution.
The data and calculations are presented below.
Data
- The plastic emitted to the ocean in 2010 was 8 million tonnes according to OWID (PEO = 8 Mt).
- The world population in 2010 was 6.92 billion according to The World Bank (WP = 6.92 G).
- Marine plastic debris kills up to 1 million seabirds and 100 thounsand sea mammals each year according to the United Nations (SB = 1 M, and SM = 100 k).
- The catch of wild fish is 0.97 to 2.7 trillion/year according to fishcount.org (WFL = 0.97 T/year to WFH = 2.7 T/year).
Calculations
- Plastic emitted to the ocean per capita in 2010 (PEOpC): PEO / WP = 8 Gkg / (6.92 G) = 1.16 kg.
- Plastic emitted to the ocean to cause one death of a seabird (PEOpDSB): PEO / SB = 8 Mt / (1 M) = 8 t.
- Plastic emitted to the ocean to cause one death of a sea mammal (PEOpDSM): PEO / SM = 8 Mt / (0.1 M) = 80 t.
- Seabirds killed by plastic marine pollution in 2010, per capita (DSBpC): PEOpC / PEOpDSB = 1.16 / (8 k) = 145 μ (145 seabirds killed per million people).
- Sea mammals killed by plastic marine pollution in 2010, per capita (DSMpC): PEOpC / PEOpDSM = 1.16 / (80 k) = 14.5 μ (14.5 sea mammals killed per million people).
- Wild fish caught per year (WF): (WFL * WFH)^0.5 = (0.97 * 2.7)^0.5 T = 1.62 T.
- Catch of wild fish per capita per year (WFpC): WF / WP = 1.62 T / (6.92 G) = 234.
- Ratio between the catch of wild fish and the number of seabirds killed by marine plastic pollution: WFpC / DSBpC = 234 / (145 μ) = 1.62 M.
- Ratio between the catch of wild fish and the number of sea mammals killed by marine plastic pollution: WFpC / DSMpC = 234 / (14.5 μ) = 16.2 M.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
First of all, I am very sorry if this was cited on the comments before, I did not have time to read all of it. I'd like to share some views on this: I completely agree that fishing is way more impactful for the ocean than plastic nowadays! However, it is not in the same proportion it's been shared here in this logic above. The main reason why is that it only calculates the death of birds and marine mammals killed by plastic x fish caught by the fishing industry. They left fish (also other animals such as corals, cephalopods, turtles, etc.) that die from plastic aside on the measurement of deaths by plastic per year, and used fish and other comercialised marine life (a group of species much more abundant in termos of biomass than birds and seabirds) to calculate impact of fishing. There is no data on sea mammals or birds on fishing impact , no data of fish for plastic impact. It is apples compared to oranges, this calculation has a huge flaw! If we want to compare 'like for like' (knowing there is no study on the impact of plastic on the death of fishes yet done, due to the low conservationists' interest in this), I then bring a comparison of deaths of sea mammals and sea birds from plastic pollution x fishing (as they also die in hoards because of bycatch!). There is the study that says that 300,000 mammals and that 320,000 seabirds are killed per year by fishing alone. This brings a much more comparative number, and it does show that plastic certainly impacts in a similar way or more (as per your numbers above, it kills around 1,000,000 birds/ 100,000 marine mammals). So yeah, as this more just comparison indicates: fighting plastic, as well as fighting commercial fishing, is ESSENTIAL to protect marine lives.
Let me know our thoughts on this. Best,
Nathalie Gil
President of Sea Shepherd Brazil
Thanks for your reply, Vasco - all clear and comprehensive. I'd only dispute the claim from How Wild-Caught Fishing Affects Wild-Animal Suffering: 'for example, catching big piscivorous fish may reduce zooplankton populations, while catching small zooplanktivorous fish may increase zooplankton populations.' - this does not consider the full balance of the trophic chain, and the fact that if you remove big piscivorous fish, you are in fact on the SHORT TERM increasing the population of zooplankton, however, this have many complex effects, one example: the d... (read more)