Stop Whaling Campaign

Plastic Kills

Bag for life or bag for death - YOU choose

Discarded plastic litter is killing marine wildlife. One of the biggest killers is plastic shopping bags. Even if disposed of responsibly, they can blow from landfills, making their way out to sea and into the stomachs and around the limbs of whales, seals, birds and turtles.

• Plastic bags, discarded fishing net and lines, strapping bands and plastic yokes from drinks cans ensnare marine animals, causing injury and death from starvation or drowning.
• Marine animals frequently get entangled in fishing lines, net off-cuts and other plastic dropped overboard out at sea.
• Plastic debris does not dissolve or disappear. Ity persists for many years, breaking down eventually into tiny pieces of plastic that enter the main food web via small filter-feeding animals with unknown consequences for marine life.
• These microparticles of plastic absorb toxic pollutants, spreading them into the marine food web which has dolphins and whales at its apex.

But, you can help prevent it

CLEAN THINKING

• Take your litter home with you and dispose of it, or recycle, responsibly.
• Reduce your use of plastic packaging and avoid plastic shopping bags – get a bag for life, not death!
• Don’t let go of helium balloons.
• Always snip can ‘yolks’ before binning them.
• Don’t flush plastic or other litter items down the toilet.
• Help beach clean-up efforts.
• Fishermen, please take all your off-cuts of netting and other rubbish to shore for safe disposal.

A recent review by WDCS reveals a number of stranded whales and dolphins found with plastics packed inside their stomachs or blocking their guts. Many more may just have died at sea, never to be documented. We are pressing the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to take on this important issue.

Other sources of good advice about marine plastic can be found at www.mcsuk.org