(Image: Greg Schubert/USFWS)

Our rubbish has reached the farthest corners of the Earth. This Laysan albatross is practising its nesting skills in one of the world’s most remote places – the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii. But instead of practising with an abandoned egg as it normally would, it is sitting on a plastic ball used for baseball batting practice.

The ball did not come from a local baseball field. It washed ashore from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an accumulation of floating rubbish that circles the central north Pacific ocean. Every year, more than 50 tons of rubbish wash up on the islands of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM), which includes Midway Atoll.

Play-acting with a plastic ball seems to be harmless for this bird, and Laysan albatrosses have been known to use all sorts of egg-shaped objects to hone their parenting skills. But other plastic rubbish can be deadly for birds. Laysan albatrosses feed on the surface, where they scoop up plastic objects such as lighters and bottle caps in addition to food such as fish and squid. Midway staff estimate that the albatrosses feed some 5 tons of plastic each year to their chicks, with fatal results: as seen in a series of shocking images by photographer Chris Jordan.

This albatross has been chosen as the poster bird for the PMNM’s campaign to reduce marine debris.