Context:
- Startling images of plastic shreds, rubber bands and other debris found jammed in the stomach of a green turtle in Thailand have highlighted the crisis of waste-strewn seas following the widely publicised death of a whale this month.
- Thailand is one of the world’s largest consumers of plastic, which kills hundreds of marine mammals and reptiles swimming off its coasts every year.
Other facts:
- Plastic, rubber bands, pieces of balloon and other rubbish had filled the turtle’s intestinal tract, leaving it unable to eat and causing its death.
- More than half of the eight million tonnes of plastic waste dumped into the world’s oceans every year comes from five Asian countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand, according to a 2015 Ocean Conservancy report.
