Fish just can't resist the smell of plastic

摘要

HUNDREDS of marine species are known to eat plastic - including those that regularly end up on our dinner plates. But why? It now seems that ocean-borne plastic has a smell that marine animals find appealing. Matthew Savoca, now at the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center in San Diego, California, exposed schools of anchovies to seawater with an odour of plastic. To make this, the team left plastic beads in the ocean for three weeks, then stirred the beads into seawater samples before filtering them out - leaving just the associated odour chemicals.