Tiny turtle pooed ‘pure plastic’ for six days after rescue from Sydney beach

A baby Green Sea Turtle rescued from a Sydney beach had eaten so much plastic that it took 6 days for the contents to be excreted according to Taronga Zoo’s wildlife hospital.

The Guardian - Tiny turtle pooed ‘pure plastic’ for six days after rescue from Sydney beach

The 127 gram hatchling was found lying on its back in a rockpool near Sydney’s Tamarama beach. It was missing one of its 4 flippers, had a chip in another and had a hole in its shell.

Carers said that aside from these injuries, the turtle appeared to be in good physical condition and had no trouble swimming.

“But then it started to defecate, and it defecated plastic for six days. No faeces came out, just pure plastic” the Taronga veterinary nurse Sarah Male said.

“It was all different sizes, colours and compositions. Some were hard, some were sharp, and with some, you could tell the plastic had writing on it. This is all some of these poor little things are eating. There’s so much plastic around they’re just consuming it as their first initial food” she said.

More than 8 million tonnes of plastic pour into oceans around the world each year. The majority is carried out to sea by rivers, dumped along coastlines or abandoned by fishing vessels. 

Microplastics have been found on Mount Everest, in the 11km deep Mariana trench in the Pacific Ocean and in the high Arctic.

Plastic is not just killing wildlife. It is ruining the health of communities across the world. It is building up in the air that we breathe, in our food and even in our bodies. A WWF study has shown that we could be eating as much as “a credit card’s worth of microplastic every week”.

Since plastic pollution is a global problem, it needs a global solution. The demand for a Global Plastics Treaty is gaining momentum led by campaigns from environmental and conservation organisations

UN Member States are currently negotiating a legally-binding, international agreement on plastics that will address the entire life cycle of plastics from design to production and disposal. On 2nd March 2022 UN Member States voted at the resumed fifth UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-5.2) to establish an Inter-governmental Negotiating Committee (INC) with the mandate of advancing a legally-binding international agreement on plastics by 2024. The resolution is entitled “End plastic pollution: Towards an international legally binding instrument.” …. see here and here.

A strong global treaty would finally give governments the power to hold polluters to account and would be a huge step towards a plastic-free future.

A Global Plastics Treaty must be ….

Mandatory, not voluntary

Hold governments to account for the waste produced by their countries

Force big corporations and brands to produce far less plastic

Ensure that richer countries fuelling the plastic pollution crisis support poorer countries to tackle it

Keep oil and gas in the ground …. 99% of plastic is made from oil and gas 

Slava Ukraini! …. Glory to Ukraine!

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