http://www.seaturtles.org/article.php?id=2543

Toxic Plastic Contaminates the Ocean, Beaches, and Can Poison Wildlife

Posted by Chris Pincetich, Ph.D. on November 22nd, 2013

New scientific research has confirmed fears of the global impacts of 
marine plastic pollution to marine life and marine ecosystems. Plastic 
does adsorb toxic PCBs, PBDEs and PAHs* from seawater and does transfer 
toxicity from adsorbed chemicals to fish that ingest them, found a new 
study published in Nature yesterday. Experimental fish were fed a 
“clean” diet, a diet with bits of virgin plastic, or a diet with bits of 
plastic that had adsorbed contaminants while suspended in a marine 
environment near San Diego, California. Toxicologists then dissected the 
fish and determined that there was a significant transfer of PBDEs to 
the fish tissue from the plastic that had adsorbed marine contaminants, 
and that the livers of some fish developed cellular damage. This 
controlled experiment confirmed the discussions I have been leading for 
years on the potential eco-toxic impacts of marine plastic pollution to 
young, endangered sea turtles.

Plastic can be a vector for increased pollutant exposure to fish, and 
likely sea turtles and other marine wildlife, but how bad is the overall 
contamination of plastic in the Pacific Ocean?