Sadly, this case isn’t an isolated incident. Other whales have met a similarly tragic fates, while many other species and marine ecosystems are also being affected, and the problem is expected to get worse.

It’s now believed that by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the sea, but production is still expected to increase over the coming years.

A report released by the Ocean Conservancy last year concluded that a majority of plastic enters the ocean from a small geographic area, and that over half comes from just five rapidly growing economies, including China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, where increased economic growth has increased consumer demand for products, but the waste management infrastructure hasn’t kept up.

According to a separate study, Indonesia is the world’s second largest plastic polluter after China, producing 3.2 million tons of mismanaged plastic waste every year, of which more than one million tons ends up in the ocean.

While efforts are underway from the local to global level to curb our use of single-use plastic items, there’s still a lot to be done. At least in response to this incident Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s coordinating minister of maritime affairs, told the Associated Press that the government is working to reduce the use of plastic in the country, “including urging shops not to provide plastic bags for customers and teaching about the problem in schools nationwide to meet a government target of reducing plastic use by 70 percent by 2025.”

Hopefully this sperm whale’s tragic, and avoidable fate, will inspire more people to choose reusable alternatives to disposable items, and encourage further efforts to reduce our consumption and improve waste management and recycling programs to prevent more plastic from finding its way back into the environment.

Photo credit: Getty Images

For more on this story go to: https://www.care2.com/causes/another-dead-whale-found-with-over-1000-pieces-of-plastic-in-its-stomach.html