Browsing: plastic in ocean

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Whale Dies in Philippines with 88 Pounds of Plastic in Stomach

A dead whale in the Philippines had 88 pounds of plastic trash in its body, and a whale expert said in some areas of the whale’s stomach the plastic had been there so long it was “almost like a solid brick.” The body of the whale, 15 feet long and weighing 1,000 pounds, washed ashore near the town of Mabini. It had more than 40 pounds of plastic bags in its stomach (see the picture, above), 16 rice sacks, four banana plantation-style bags, and a variety of other plastic waste. Darrell Blatchley, owner of D’Bone Collector Museum in Davao City,…

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Dead Whale in Indonesia Had 1,000 Pieces of Plastic in Its Stomach, Including Flip Flops

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…

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Floating Boom Heads for Pacific Garbage Patch. Goal Is To Collect 87,000 Tons of Plastic

A 2,000-foot-long floating boom just left San Francisco on its way to the Pacific Garbage Patch, a gyre of trash between California and Hawaii, with 1.8 trillion pieces of garbage, including 87,000 tons of plastic. The Pacific Garbage Patch is about three times the size of France. The unmanned boom was towed by a ship from the nonprofit Ocean Cleanup, an organization founded by Boyan Slat, a 24-year-old Dutch inventor. Once on site, the boom will detach from the towing vessel. The current is expected to pull it into a U shape, which will trap the plastic as it is…