Plastic Is Melting Onto Corals

Scientists have been recording marine animals entangled in or consuming plastic debris for over half a century, some even proposing the term “Plastocene” (the Plastic Age) to denote the geological epoch spanning from the 1950s onward. And now researchers have discovered a new way these substances are polluting the environment: Plastic is fusing with corals.

The discovery of this conglomerate—which researchers have dubbed “plasticoral”—was made during a survey of the beaches of the Ryukyu Islands in southern Japan. The scientists…