NEWS AND COMMENT-TARONGA ZOO, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: A baby sea turtle was rescued from Sydney beach and brought to Taronga Zoo where they have a wildlife hospital. While checking over the turtle and ensuring that it was in good health, it defecated plastic particles for six straight days. Yes, it took six days to expel quite large pieces of plastic from its digestive tract. And it only defecated plastic! It’s amazing that it survived. And it makes me think about all the other baby and adult turtles in the sea where this charming creature came from. Are their stomachs full of plastic too? It looks highly likely that the answer to that question is yes. Humankind has totally f***ed up the oceans. P.S. We’ve all got plastic sloshing around our lungs.
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Some of the fragments were very sharp and they could have caused serious internal injuries which is why the veterinarians at the hospital say that it is lucky that the turtle survived. The hospital cares for about 80 marine turtles annually. Many have severe injuries caused by entanglement in fishing lines and crab pots. Also fishing lines with hooks cause damage and of course, as mentioned, plastic ingestion.
The government of New South Wales has banned all lightweight single use bags since June 1, 2022 and from November other single-use plastic items will be banned including plastic straws, bowls, plates, cutlery, stirrers and cotton buds. This may help to prevent the astonishing and catastrophic situation that befell this turtle and I suspect thousands of others including other species of marine wildlife.
It is reported that the hospital filled six tiny vials of plastic fragments, some of which were very hard and sharp as mentioned.
You will find plastic particles in every part of every ocean on the planet. The planet is saturated with plastic and as I recall 10 countries are the prime culprits from where plastic runs from major rivers into the sea. India the worst country in the world for plastic pollution. The country alone pollutes the oceans to the tune of 126.5 million kg of plastic per year.
In second place is China with 70.7 million kg of plastic discharged into the ocean annually, followed by Indonesia at 56.3 million kg, followed by Brazil at 38 million kg, and in fifth place is Thailand a 22.8 million kg, in sixth place is Mexico at 3.5 million kg with United Kingdom in 10th place in discharging 703,000 kg of plastic into the oceans annually. Shame on them all.
Incidentally, the United States produces 42 billion kg of plastic waste annually but only 2.4 million kg of it ends up in the world’s oceans.
People are doing something about it but not very much and things are happening very slowly. It seems that humankind is simply unable to stop producing plastic because we’ve become dependent upon it so much and frankly countries like India don’t seem to give a damn about plastic pollution. India is a terrible country with respect to pollution of all kinds including coal burning. They are a terrible liability in terms of the health of the planet. And of course, China is almost as bad. They are chasing economic success and growth at the expense of the planet as a whole.
Below are some more articles on plastic pollution:
