Watch: Dead whale found full of trash

This article was created in partnership with the National Geographic Society.

A dead sperm whale that washed ashore in eastern Indonesia had consumed a horrifying collection of plastic trash, including 115 drinking cups, 25 plastic bags, plastic bottles, two flip-flops and a bag containing more than 1,000 pieces of string.

In all, the plastic contents of the whale’s stomach weighed 13.2 pound (six kilograms).

The rotting carcass of the 31-foot (9.5-meter) whale was found Monday in shallow waters just off Kapota Island in the Wakatobi National Park, according to news reports.

“Although we have not been able to deduce the cause of death, the facts that we see are truly awful,” Dwi Suprati, a marine conservation coordinator at World Wildlife Fund Indonesia told the Associated Press.

Sperm whales normally feed mostly on

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