Australia's Great Barrier Reef under threat from plastic waste

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is under threat after it was discovered that corals are digesting tiny fragments of plastic at a significant rate, researchers said on Wednesday.

A James Cook University study found that corals consumed small plastics measuring under 5mm about the same rate as their normal food and weren't able to expel this waste.

Corals were not very selective in what they eat and were sensitive to a range of environmental stressors, Researcher Mia Hoogenboom was quoted by the Guardian as saying.

"We know in other animals that plastics block feeding activities, as well as soak up toxins. It's quite worrying and it' s a reminder that we can manage this kind of stress on the reef at a local level, as well as looking at larger challenges such as climate change," Hoogenboom said.

Hoogenboom said that while corals benefited from the process of photosynthesis, they also required nutrients from consumed food and would suffer a "very slow process of starvation" should their stomachs become overloaded with plastic.

"In my opinion we need a general focus on cleaning up plastic pollution, to clean up beaches and reduce the amount of plastics in the waterways and into the oceans," she said, adding that "It's a significant problem globally."

Researchers estimated there is more than 269,000 tons of plastic floating in the world's oceans. Endi