Plastic pollution in oceans causes injury, entanglement, starvation, and death to marine wildlife on a massive scale, with welfare implications for individual animals.
Marine animals entangled in plastic suffer slow deaths from strangulation, drowning, or inability to feed. Animals ingesting plastic experience gut obstruction, false satiety, and toxic chemical exposure. Ghost nets trap animals including dolphins, seals, and turtles for weeks before death. The welfare suffering from plastic pollution is enormous in scale and duration. Individual rescue efforts save lives but cannot address the systemic problem.