Our Modern Albatross

And some in dreams assurèd wereOf the Spirit that plagued us so;Nine fathom deep he had followed usFrom the land of mist and snow.— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, part 2

I have been a seabird biologist for over thirty years. The job has taken me to some of the world’s remotest areas: Alaska’s Little Diomede Island; the Gannet Islands, off the coast of Labrador; New Island, in the Falklands. But no matter how isolated they are, I can count on finding plastic tampon applicators washed up on shores. Early in my career, when I fancied myself an intrepid explorer of wild, untouched landscapes, I considered these too frequently flushed interlopers jarring, to say the least. But I viewed them merely as a problem of aesthetics and ego — not an issue for the environment.

My opinion changed on Valentine’s Day 2017. I was conducting seabird surveys off the...