Polar bears chewing plastic!

These troubling photos show two young polar bear cubs playing with a large sheet of plastic on a remote Arctic island. The siblings were spotted with their mother on the icy coast of Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago about halfway between the mainland and North Pole. The black plastic stands out as the white bears paw at it, before putting it in their mouths.

Svalbard is hundreds of miles from continental Europe and has a population of about 2,500, yet researchers navigating the freezing waters found plastic waste wherever they went.

Claire Wallerstein was part of the Sail Against Plastic team, a group of 15 British scientists, artists, filmmakers and campaigners who recently returned from an expedition to the Arctic Circle.

The group sailed aboard a tall ship named the Blue Clipper, spending 10 days sampling the sea, air and beaches around the isolated coasts of Svalbard. Although twice the size of Belgium, Svalbard’s human population is outnumbered by polar bears. The team found plastics on beaches at every site they surveyed, including some that must have travelled long distances.

With currents reaching Svalbard from both the Atlantic and Siberia, debris can arrive from far away. Local beach cleaners have reportedly found plastic waste traceable even to Florida. The group said this was inevitably having an impact on Arctic wildlife!

By Adi,GreenPlanet