A dead whale that washed ashore had a lump of rubbish in its stomach including 115 plastic drinking cups and two flip-flops.

Wakatobi National Park chief Heri Santoso said rescuers found the rotting carcass of the 31-foot sperm whale on Monday near Kapota waters off in Southeast Sulawesi province, eastern Indonesia.

Mr Santoso said the mammal was male and the 13lbs of rubbish in its stomach were identified as 115 plastic cups, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, two flip-flops, a nylon sack and more than 1,000 other plastic pieces.

The cause of the death was still unknown and the carcass was to be buried on Tuesday without an autopsy because of its decayed condition.


A whale washed ashore with a huge amount of rubbish in its stomach (Picture: Reuters)

In total there was 13lbs of rubbish in the whale’s stomach (Picture: Reuters)

Flip-flops, plastic cups and plastic bags were among the 1,000 items found in the stomach (Picture: Reuters)

The cause of the death was still unknown and the carcass was to be buried on Tuesday without a necropsy because of its decayed condition (Picture: Reuters)

Earlier this year, a pilot whale starved to death after it swallowed 80 plastic bags.



It was barely alive when it was found by rescuers in a canal near Thailand’s border with Malaysia in June.

The whale was described as ’emaciated’ and had struggled to eat because its stomach was so full of plastic.

It vomited five bags during rescue attempts which proved fruitless, as the animal died a short time later.

One of the surgeons tasked with trying to treat the whale said it was the worst case of an animal dying due to plastic pollution she had ever seen.

Up to 80 plastic bags extracted from within a whale are seen in Songkhla, Thailand (Picture: Reuters)

Thai Marine Biologist officials rescuing the short-finned pilot whale at a canal in Songkhla province, southern Thailand (Picture: EPA)

There was so much plastic in the whale’s stomach it could not fit any food in (Picture: EPA)

An autopsy revealed 80 plastic bags weighing up to 8kg (18lb) in the creature’s stomach, the veterinary team said.

People used buoys to keep the whale afloat after it was first spotted on Monday.

An umbrella was used to protect the animal from the blazing sun.

Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a marine biologist and lecturer at Kasetsart University, said the bags had made it impossible for the whale to eat any nutritional food.

‘If you have 80 plastic bags in your stomach, you die,’ he said.

Thailand is one of the world’s largest users of plastic bags.

The plastic bags weighed a shocking eight kilograms (Picture: EPA)

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Thon said at least 300 marine animals including pilot whales, sea turtles and dolphins, perished each year in Thai waters after ingesting plastic.

‘It’s a huge problem,’ he said. ‘We use a lot of plastic.’

Surgeon Dr Watchara Sakornwimon, who carried out a post-mortem, told Sky News: ‘We found a lot of plastic bags in the stomach, I think around 85 plastic bags.

‘Somehow they were from another country, they were not from only Thailand.

‘Because its the ocean and he’s a whale he can travel around the world. So he ate plastic bags wherever he was that day before he became stranded.’