The amount of plastic pollution in the oceans is rapidly increasing. This is problematic, as at least 700 kinds of ocean animals — including sharks, whales, seabirds and turtles — can become caught in the stuff or mistake it for a tasty snack.

While we know that some ocean animals seem to catch plastic because it looks like jellyfish or some other food sources, less research has been carried out into what plastic smells like to ocean animals. But now, a study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found the coating (涂层) that naturally builds up on ocean plastics causes the rubbish to give off the smell of food.

The researchers took 15 turtles, each around five months old, and placed them in a lab aquarium. They then piped in smells of clean water, clean plastic, turtle food, and plastic that had been soaking in the ocean environment for five weeks. The turtles showed no reaction to the smells of clean water or clean plastic. But when facing ocean soaked plastic or turtle food, they stuck their noses out of the water and showed increased activity.

“This finding is important because it’s the first proof that the smell of ocean plastics causes animals to eat them,” said Dr Kenneth J Lohmann, who took part in the study. “It’s common to find a turtle with its stomach full of plastic materials. There are also increasing reports of sea turtles that have become ill and stuck on the beach due to their taking in plastic.”

According to the researchers, areas of the ocean with much plastic may trick turtles and other animals into thinking that there are plenty of food sources, when the opposite is true. “Once these plastics are in the ocean, we don’t have a good way to remove them or prevent them from smelling like food,” said Lohmann. “The best thing we can do is to keep plastic from getting into the ocean at all.”

Scientists in Mexico say they may have found a way to cut the production of methane (甲烷), a gas linked to rising temperatures on the Earth’s surface. The scientists say their method may help reduce the methane released by cows, one of the main producers of the gas.

When talking about global warming, many people think of carbon dioxide, another heat-trapping gas. Methane is an even more powerful heat-trapping gas. Cows are known to produce high levels of methane when they eat and process food.

Researchers at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico are studying how a cow's diet affects the production of methane. The researchers are using a specially designed machine to measure the effect. The scientists use the machine to try to capture the animal's breathing to examine the methane released.

Most of the gas is released when cows belch. The digestive bacteria in a cow's stomach causes the animal to send out the gas through its mouth. There are an estimated 1.3 to 1.5 billion cows in the world. Each animal releases as much as 120 kilograms of methane per year. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that, whenever measured in pounds, the effect of methane on climate change is more than 25 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period.

As it is difficult to capture the gas released by cows for use as energy, one way to lessen its release is to change their diet. Scientists in some countries are looking for ways to decrease cow methane. But while they are trying different plants and chemical compounds, those products would be too costly and difficult to bring to Mexico.

There is an “environmental silver lining” as a result of the corona virus (冠状病毒) —carbon emissions have been reduced by more than 4%, many wildlife markets around the world have been closed and air quality in some places has slightly improved, Dave Ford, founder of the environmental literacy organization Soul Buffalo, says.

However, because of an increase in pandemic-related, non-recyclable materials such as take-out plastic containers and masks, 30% more waste has entered our oceans, he notes. “There's 129 billion facemasks being made every month—enough that you could cover the entire country of Switzerland with facemasks at the end of this year if trends continue,” he says. “And a lot of these masks are ending up in the water.” The masks look like jellyfish—in other words, food—to turtles and other wildlife creatures, thus, attractive to those animals and then endangering them, he says.

Very little of the plastic we use is actually recyclable. Sharon Lerner of The Intercept told Here & Now last year that "the vast majority of plastic that has ever been produced—79%—has actually ended up in landfills or burned, but not remade into new products." Even if the plastics we have can be reused, Ford says recycling programs across the globe are facing severe budget cuts.

“We're starting to see recycling programs stopped, waste picking communities operating at 50% or actually shutting down. They are the last line of defense between plastic and the environment,” he says.

Last year, Unilever planned to cut its use of non-recycled plastics in half by 2025. In an interview with Here & Now, Richard Slater, Unilever's chief research and development officer, drew on the industry argument that plastic packaging is lighter, which means less shipping and therefore fewer dangerous emissions that cause climate change.

Yes, plastics are lightweight and can cut down on fuel spending. But on the other hand, plastic waste is being found in every aspect of life—even in the deepest ocean.