There's a worm at the bottom of this sample...

... and his name is Wiggly-woo!

He's normally found at the beach, sitting in the sludge, nibbling on whatever happens by. I'm going to be looking inside this critter to see if he's ingested any micro-plastics (which are pollutants formed from plastic waste) and whether they've crossed from his gut into his body.

Microplastics are a problem. Part of the problem is that we don't know how much of a problem they are. They form from our plastic waste, when bottles and other items get washed into the sea and are gradually broken down into smaller and smaller pieces. The bigger pieces present another problem entirely - albatrosses feed them to their young, who become bloated and gradually starve to death, leaving behind sad, feathery plastic-filled corpses.

Do microplastics have a biological effect on the animals who unwittingly eat them? In some cases, demonstrably yes. Do they accumulate as you go higher up the food chain? We don't know, really. Could they affect humans who eat fish? Possibly.

The work I'm doing will hopefully help to answer some of these questions.