More than twenty million plastic containers and bags enter the world's oceans every day. Now for the first time, a long term study has directly linked the ingestion of plastic rubbish in our oceans with the decline of a top marine predator, the Flesh-footed Shearwater.

A 14 year study of the birds has also found a direct correlation between the mass of plastic and concentrations of toxic trace metals in the bloodstream and feathers of the shearwaters