It has been reported in a new study by environmental scientists at UC Davis that a huge amount of synthetic clothing fibers is there inside some of the fish they caught off the Northern California coast. These fish are consumed by locals.

According to lead researcher Chelsea Rochman of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, it was found that nearly a quarter of the 64 fish bought at fish markets in Half Moon Bay and Princeton and examined for the study consisted of pieces of synthetic clothing in their guts.

On Thursday, the study was published in the journal of Scientific Reports. The study appeared after a research carried out by the San Francisco Estuary Institute, in which it was found that San Francisco Bay’s surface is largely contaminated with plastic microbeads that are used to manufacture cosmetics and plastic fibers from clothing.

The researchers found plastic clothing fibers in the guts of nearly one-fourth of the anchovy, smelt, rockfish, salmon, bass, sanddab, cod and oysters. Rochman said that insufficient filtering by sewage treatment plants and home laundry users could be the source of the contamination.

According to Rochman, “This shows we have a waste management problem that is coming back to haunt us. This study doesn’t make me afraid of eating fish. The health benefits outweigh the hazards of my being cotaminated with microplastics”.

As per Rochman, plastic fibers were just one among many contaminants that enter fish and were most likely less dangerous than PCBs, mercury and other known fish contaminants.