Litter may be an environmental hazard and eyesore — but for some animals, it provides a home. In a study of local rivers, researchers at the University of Nottingham in the UK have found more invertebrates (无脊椎动物) like insects living on litter than on rocks in water.

The researchers studied three local rivers; the River Leen, Black Brook and Saffron Brook, in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. They collected samples (试样) of 50 rocks and 50 pieces of litter from the riverbeds at each site and took them back to the lab for comparison.

There they washed them individually to look for macroinvertebrates and then measured the surface area of each item. They found that the surfaces of the litter were inhabited (居住) by a more diverse group of invertebrates than those found on rocks.

Plastic, metal, fabric, and masonry samples of litter had the highest diversity of inhabitants, while glass and rock were much less diverse than other types of materials. Flexible plastic, like plastic bags, had the most diverse animal communities, causing the researchers to guess that the plastic might be similar to the structure of plants found in water.

“There were five species on litter. Some of these species are normally found on plants in water, which suggests that flexible plastic might be mistaken as those plants,” says lead author Hazel Wilson, a PhD student in the School of Geography at the University of Nottingham. “However, we need more investigation to work out for sure which characteristics of litter attract so many animals. This could help us discover methods and materials to replace the litter habitat with alternative and less damaging materials when we conduct river cleanups.”

“While these invertebrates have found a use for plastic bags and other trash, that obviously doesn’t mean that’s a good reason to leave litter in the environment. Our findings highlight the poor environmental quality in some rivers and point to the need for supporting better biodiversity,” says Wilson.

We are what we eat, and what we eat reveals something about what we are in return. So it shouldn’t be all that surprising that humans are now apparently eating plastic.

A small trial at the Medical University of Vienna found tiny pieces of it in the digestive systems of people from eight different countries. The study involved just eight people and doesn’t tell us what if any effect eating plastic was having on their bodies. We already knew fish were eating plastic. Did we really think it wouldn’t reach back up to the top of the food chain, that the consequences of our own actions couldn’t return to us?

This goes beyond cleaning up the oceans. Six of the eight subjects of the study ate sea not all of them did. Other possible theories involve drinking out of plastic bottle. eating food that’s been wrapped in plastic, or tiny plastic pieces floating in the air which then land on our food. But our environment is so filled now with plastic that it seems that we were going to absorb it somehow.

Does it actually matter? This study can’t answer that question, because all it tells us is that microplastics were found in human wastes. If it’s just passing through the body, then perhaps there’s no damage done. However, if there were evidence of plastics being absorbed and gathering in our internal organs, as some animal studies have suggested, that would potentially be a red flag.

Solving plastic pollution is nowhere near as simple as some campaigners make it sound. Switching away from plastic packaging to other materials would create other environmental dilemmas. Bottling liquids in glass rather than plastic makes them heavier which potentially means more trips to transport them, paper production has a bigger carbon footprint. Even if it were possible to stop using the stuff tomorrow, it would take up to 1,000 years for some of what’s being produced right now to break down.

But just because it’s difficult, it doesn’t mean we shrug our shoulders and do nothing. There is something genuinely mad about a society that is on the one hand crazy about the quality of the food we put in our mouths, and yet also mindlessly eats its own garbage. The war on plastic, it seems, just got personal.