A new study says that every piece of plastic in the ocean can potentially kill a turtle

A new study reveals that sea turtles, especially young ones, are highly vulnerable to plastic pollution in the oceans. There is a one in five chance that the turtle that consumes only one piece of plastic will die and that the animal has eaten 14 pieces. If a turtle eats 14 pieces of plastic in the ocean, it has a 50% chance of dying because of it.

Given the amount of plastic present in the ocean, the researchers involved in the study say their findings raise serious concerns about the long-term survival of some turtle species, notes a BBC report. There is a constant flow of plastic waste in the oceans and marine life suffers a lot, seemingly harmless acts, such as dropping toilet contacts, will increase plastic pollution in the sea.

Documenting the effects of the animals caught in the plastic waste and the resulting threats is quite simple and has been carried out to find out exactly what is happening, because the effects of plastics consumption are much more drastic, says the report.

The study estimated that about half of all sea turtles in the world have consumed some kind of plastic. Among young, young green marine turtles off the coast of Brazil, this number increases to about 90%, say the authors.

To find out how much plastics exposure affected turtles, researchers reviewed post mortem cases of these creatures in Queensland, Australia. The team also investigated ground stranding records, the report notes. According to reports, the researchers concluded that if a sea turtle eats more than 200 pieces of plastic, death is an absolute certainty.

With 14 pieces, there is a 50% chance of death and a single piece of plastic, the risk of death was 22%, according to the study. Turtles have a sort of digestive tract that does not allow them to regurgitate anything, BBC Dr Britta Denise Hardesty of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Agency (CSIRO) told the BBC.

"If she finds herself in the wrong place," she said, "even a small piece of thin, filmed plastic can block that channel and nothing can pass it and eventually the blockage can lead to death."

In addition to blocking body processes, harder pieces of plastic are known to cause internal injuries and these could also lead to death, she said.

The researchers also found that juveniles ate a lot more pieces of plastic than adults. Compared with adults, about 23% of juveniles and 54% of newborns consumed plastic, compared to 16% of adults. This greater vulnerability depends on where these animals live and their eating habits.

"We think that small turtles are less selective in what they eat than larger adults who eat seagrass and crustaceans, young turtles are off and older animals are feeding closer to shore", Hardesty explains.