Impact of Plastic Pollution on Animals

An estimated 100 million are estimated to have been discarded into the world’s seas so far, circulating in vast oceanic gyres are a great threat to marine life. Plastics pose a dangerous risk to sea turtles, which erroneously consume plastic bags, because they resemble jellyfish; this eventually leads to their death. November 2008, in Australia, a 10-foot-long crocodile tagged as part of a government wildlife-tracking program turned up dead, having consumed 25 plastic shopping and garbage bags (McNamee, 2008).

Plastic ingestion is a real cattle killer disease, with almost no known cure. It indeed is a quiet and painful way for cattle to die, the cause of the agony is difficult to determine as the symptoms are often are misleading. Plastic is of various shades and tastes, some sweet, others salty, and cattle like kids, will eat just about anything.

Plastic has been discovered in the bowels of most cows during postmortem analysis. Most cattle die within a week after ingesting plastic. It would be great if there was a vaccine or some method of appropriate identification of the ‘plastic disease’. Unfortunately, college grants do not fund such studies, neither do governments subsidize cattle owners for their losses.

Word of the misfortune brought to wildlife by plastics is spreading, and many countries have taken action to prohibit or limit the use of throwaway plastic bags. Bangladesh is the first country to have banned the use of plastic bags, as far back as 2002. This radical measure was taken after Bangladeshi authorities discovered that millions of plastic bags were clogging the country’s system of flood drains, contributing to the destruction caused by typhoons.

The use of plastic bags has been banned in Mauritania to protect the environment and the lives of marine and terrestrial animals. At the political capital of Mauritania; Nouakchott, plastics make up a quarter of 56,000 tons of waste produced annually, as portrayed by official statistics. Plastic consumption is responsible for the death of over 70% of cattle and sheep recorded in Nouakchott.

References

McNamee, G. (2008, December 8). Making the Wild Safe for Wildlife. Retrieved May 22, 2015, from Encyclopedia Britannica: http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2008/12/plastic-bags-and-animals-making-the-wild-safe-for-wildlife/