Sixteen rice sacks, multiple shopping bags and four large bags used in banana plantations.
Those are some of the plastic items, weighing 88 pounds, found last week inside a dead whale in the Philippines, researchers at a Davao City museum said Sunday.
“This whale had the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale. It’s disgusting,” D’ Bone Collector Museum officials said in a Facebook post.
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The male Cuvier beaked whale washed up on the Mindanao island on Saturday, according to the natural history museum.
The Philippines is one of the largest contributors of ocean plastic in the world. A 2017 study found the Philippines and four other Asian countries – China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand – dump more plastic in the ocean than the rest of the world combined.
Last June, a pilot whale died in Thailand after swallowing more than 80 plastic bags, weighing about 18 pounds.
Other parts of the world have also dealt with the problem. Less than a year ago, a sperm whale washed ashore in Spain with 64 pounds of waste and plastic inside its stomach.
The Davao City museum said it would provide in the next few days a full list of the plastic items found in the whale. The organization urged authorities to do more to stop so much plastic from entering the ocean.
“Action must be taken by the government against those who continue to treat the waterways and ocean as dumpsters,” museum officials wrote.
