Time and Tideline .. detail

One cigarette lighter, a toothbrush, a toy robot and a tampon applicator. The list of plastic items recovered from the stomach of a Laysan albatross chick that died on a remote Pacific island reads like a random assortment of everyday household objects.

The stomach of one fulmar that died in Belgium contained 1,603 separate scraps of plastic.

……much of the plastic rubbish that fell into the sea 50 years ago is still there today, either floating in the huge circulating "gyres" of the Pacific or sitting on the seabed waiting to be gobbled up by a passing sea creature.

Steve Connor:
The Independent Tuesday, 5 February 2008