Plastic is suffocating coral reefs — and it's not just bottles and bags

Researchers found that plastic debris sits atop almost 92% of the reefs they studied, including some of the most remote and uninhabited ones. Here in Oman, plastic floats past an otherwise healthy reef. (Tane Sinclair-Taylor)

Finding new species of fish was the goal when marine biologist Hudson Pinheiro was diving in the Verde Island Passage in the Philippines. And he found them. But while he was down there, he found something else that was deeply troubling: plastic — loads of it smothering the coral reef where the fish were living.

"It's sad," Pinheiro, currently a researcher with the University of São Paulo, told NPR. "It's super, super sad."