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> While more research is needed to determine the exact origin of plasticorals — one likely source is beach bonfires

Considering the last picture they have is a bit of plastic (or wax), on top of some leaves, with burn marks, this seems like a logical conclusion.

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How would a bonfire on a beach end up mixing plastic with coral in the ocean?

It's in the headline "New form of plastic pollution discovered on the shores of vulnerable coral reefs"

"on the shores"

and the "form" part of that headline is literal. It's not a new pollution, just a new physical "form" of that pollution: plastic that would have been floating around on its own instead stuck to old bits of coral that would have been sitting next to it.

Seems intentionally deceiving/alarmist.

The keyword here is coral rubble. This is dead coral gravel in a beach, not living corals including plastic in their tissues. Dead corals are just another rock stained after a bonfire and the tide movement will erode the soft plastic from the rocks again.

This is not different than saying than pouring molting aluminum in a fire-ant nest creates a new type of pollution: the aluminant.

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