Plasticorals Found on a Japanese Beach Are Everywhere

During fieldwork on Okinawa Island, researchers uncovered new evidence of the scale of plastic pollution: “plasticorals,” a name that speaks for itself.

A New Type of “plastiglomerate”

By examining in detail the samples collected from one of its beaches, Ifenna Ilechukwu and colleagues found that the unusual stains observed on the surface of these marine organisms were fragments of plastic that had literally fused with their skeletons.

This discovery constitutes a new example of a plastoglomerate, a blend of plastic particles with mineral or organic matter. In this particular case, it would probably result from the incineration of plastics along Okinawa’s shores, which would then have attached to the corals.

Although the identified examples have all been found on the coasts, the authors of the study, published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, remind that fragments of coral formations, carried by waves, typically end up in the oceans, where they support the local ecosystem by enabling the development of new corals or by providing shelter for fry.

Des précédents

Among earlier examples of plastiglomerates, in 2023 researchers from the Federal University of Paraná had discovered “plastic rocks” linked to volcanic activity on a remote Brazilian island. Analyses later revealed the presence of high-density polyethylene, indicating these pollutants probably originated from fishing nets that had washed ashore.

That same year, various types of plastiglomerates were discovered on an island in the Java Sea. Among them were plasticrotes, in which plastic coats the coastal rocks, plastigoudrons, a viscous mixture of petroleum residues and embedded microplastics on the rocks, and pyroplastics, similar to those found on the Japanese beaches.

Earlier this year, Japanese researchers had reported an oceanic odyssey involving a crab that apparently grew inside a plastic bottle.