A pregnant whale carcass washed up last week in Italy’s Sardinia containing 22 kg of plastic in its stomach.
The postmortem exam determined that the whale was carrying a dead fetus, garbage bags, fishing nets, lines, tubes, a bag of washing machine liquid, etc in its stomach. Experts said the mother whale had been unable to survive due to the huge amount of plastic it had ingested, TIME reported.
Expressing his anguish on a Facebook post, Italy’s Environment Minister Sergio Casto said, “Are there still people who say these are not important problems? For me they are, and they are priorities.” Referring to recent approval by the European Parliament of a law banning a wide range of single-use plastic items by 2021, Costa said, “Italy will be one of the first countries to implement it. The war on disposable plastic has begun. And we won’t stop here.”
In similar incidents, a sperm whale was found dead in Indonesia with more than 1,000 plastic items while in June, a pilot whale died in Thailand after consuming at least 80 plastic bags. The alarming rise in such incidents has brought back the debate on the issue of plastic pollution. The World Wildlife Foundation also took the issue to social media with an appeal to stop plastic pollution.
A pregnant whale carcass washed ashore in Italy with 22kg of plastic in its stomach.
This is the 4th reported incident since November. We must act now to protect our precious marine life.#StopPlasticPollution now: https://t.co/b6QppXnrln pic.twitter.com/cIhZloMsrQ
— WWF
