Injured fish found with plastic wrapped around body rings alarm bells on improper trash disposal

Adam Turnbull was fishing in the South Saskatchewan River, a major river in Canada, when he hooked a large fish.

“I could tell something was definitely wrong,” he said in an exclusive interview with UNILAD.

He said he thought it had been “attacked by another fish” because it had a wound in the middle of its body.

“I noticed the sports drink wrapper around its body. I quickly grabbed a small pair of scissors and carefully removed the plastic,” he said.

He then shared pictures of the fish on Facebook to raise awareness.

“I just really want people to realize something as small as a drink label which takes up no space in your pocket can have devastating affect on our outdoors and wildlife.”

The post made on Oct. 29 has been shared over 16,000 times.

Philippines top sea garbage dumper

In 2017, Greenpeace ranked the Philippines as one of the top three nations that dump garbage into the ocean.

It cited that the country’s high amount of plastic waste is due to “sachet economies.” The country has 1.88 million tons of “mismanaged plastic waste” each year.

The environmental organization called on multinationals that produce single-use plastics such as Nestle, Unilever, and Procter and Gamble to work toward environmental sustainability.

According to a 2015 study from the international group Ocean Conservancy and McKinsey Center for Business and Environment, ocean waste mostly comes from collected trash.

It was found that garbage-hauling companies make illegal dumps in the ocean. Another source of ocean waste is illegal open dump sites near bodies of water.  Niña V. Guno /ra

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