A dead 31-foot sperm whale washed up on a beach in a popular resort area of Indonesia recently with more than 1,000 pieces of plastic in its stomach, including 115 cups, 25 bags and two flip flops. All told, the plastic in the whale’s stomach weighed 13 pounds.
State officials who were called to the scene near Kapota Island couldn’t tell if the plastic killed the whale or whether it died of other causes. Indonesia is one of the largest producers of plastic waste in the world, along with China. This was not the first such incident in that part of the world. In June, a male pilot whale washed up in southern Thailand with 17 pounds of plastic bags and packaging in its stomach.
But the problem is worldwide. This summer a dead whale which washed ashore in Spain had 64 pounds of trash clogging its intestines and stomach. Much of the problem comes from single-use plastic items that do not decompose, including bags, food packaging, straws and cutlery. The European Union recently voted to ban these items, but the ban doesn’t take effect until 2021. Read more:
