The discovery of the body of a sperm whale floating off the American coast with more than 13 tons of plastic waste in its stomach made everyone feel sorry for them.

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

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

The rotting carcass of the 31-foot (9.5-meter) whale was found Monday in shallow waters near Kapota Island in Wakatobi.

""Sperm" National Park, according to press reports.

“Although we have not been able to deduce the cause of death, the events we see are truly terrible,” Dwi Suprati, marine conservation coordinator for Indonesia’s World Wildlife Fund, told the Associated Press.

Sperm whales typically feed primarily on giant squid, supplemented by octopuses, fish, shrimp, crabs, and small sharks. They are found in all of the world’s oceans and are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act and considered depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

""Sperm"

According to a 2015 study that found 192 coastal countries contribute a combined total of 8.5 million tons of plastic waste to the oceans each year.

Earlier this year, China stopped buying plastic waste from the rest of the world, disrupting the global recycling industry and moving the global plastic waste crisis to Southeast Asia. (Read more about that, here.)

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Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s maritime affairs minister, told the Associated Press that the discovery of the whale should help raise awareness about plastic waste and the need to reduce its use. He said the government aims to reduce plastic use in Indonesia by 70 percent by 2025. He said the government has urged stores to stop providing plastic bags to customers and has started an educational program in schools to educate to children about the problems of plastic waste.

“I am very sad to hear this,” he told The Guardian . “Many other marine animals may be contaminated with plastic waste and this is very dangerous for our lives.”

This grim discovery was the second whale to wash ashore with a stomach full of plastic in recent months. Last June, a dying pilot whale was found in the southern province of Songkhla, near the border with Malaysia. Rescuers worked for five days to revive the mammal, but were unsuccessful. Just before dying, the whale spit out five plastic bags. An autopsy found another 80 bags and other pieces of plastic trash in the whale’s stomach weighing 17 pounds (eight kilograms).

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