By Amanda Froelich at trueactivist.com
From oil spills to overflowing landfills, man’s unsustainable quest to live a better life with little regard for the environment has caused a staggering amount of environmental disasters to be formed. At present, pollution is labeled to be the #1 killer, affecting more than 100 million worldwide.
And that’s not all… More than 1 million seabirds and 100 million mammals are killed by pollution every year.
Obviously change is needed – but what can inspire people to live more sustainably and limit their carbon footprint than startling statistics? Possibly the photos shown below, which in their heartbreaking real-ness, expose the truth of what is happening across the globe.
Following are 20+ shocking photos which capture man-made disasters and their effect on the environment. If these photos don’t inspire you to collect trash when you see it, it’s time to wake up.
1. A Tortoise Trapped In Plastic
Credit: Unknown
2. Homeless Koala
Credit: TheGuardian
3. Trapped In Plastic, This Turtle’s Waist Couldn’t Grow
Credit: Unknown
4. Bird In Oil Spill
Credit: Charlie Riedel
Albatross Killed By Excess Plastic Ingestion (North Pacific)
Credit: PollutionSpeakout.org
5. A Stork Trapped In Plastic
Credit: Unknown
6. A Wounded Seal Unsafe In Its Own Habitat
Credit: Ares Caius
7. Oiled Penguins
Credit: John Hrusa
8. Surfing A Wave Full Of Trash (Java, Indonesia – The World’s Most Populated Island)
Credit: PopulationSpeakout.org
9. Plastic Diver
Every Morning This Kid Searches Through Discarded Trash For Recyclable Plastic That Can Be Sold For 35 Cents Per Kilo To Help His Family.
Credit: George Steinmetz
10. Seal’s Nose Trapped In Plastic Waste
Credit: Unknown
11. Bird In Oil Spill
Credit: Unknown
12. Boy Swimming In Polluted Water In India
Credit: greenatom.net
13. A Child Drinks Polluted Water From A Stream In Fuyuan County, Yunnan Province
Credit: Stringer
14. Mexico City Landscape, 20 Million Inhabitants
Credit: PopulationSpeakout.org
15. Turtle Population Killed By Chemicals In Environment (Tunisia)
Credit: The Tunisian Ecocide Group
16. Bangladesh Landscape Filled With Trash
Credit: PopulationSpeakout.org
17. A Mute Swan Builds A Nest Using Plastic Garbage
Credit: Wikipedia.org
18. Landfill In Acra (Ghana)
First-world trash usually ends up in third-world countries’ landfills.
Credit: PopulationSpeakout.org
19. Frog In Polluted Water
Credit: LiveIgnite.org
20. This Crab Lives In An Old Bottle
Credit: animalnewsthepodcast.wordpress.com
21. Plastic Bag Floating In The Sea Off The Philippines
Credit: Keith A. Ellenbogen
Young Raccoon With Fishing Lure In His Lip
22. Pollution In A ‘Dry River’ In Bali
When rains come, all this garbage gets washed out to sea.
Credit: Katie Pip
23. Cat Sunning In Trash (Wetsahara, Morocco)
Credit: Nadine Kreation
24. A River In The Suburbs Of Mumbai
Credit: Chirag Sutar
25. Open Dumping In The Streets Of New Delhi, India
Credit: Emma Valette
26. Trash Washed Out To Sea… (Mekong, Laos)
Credit: Raymond Richards
27. Beijing In A Cloud Of Smog
Credit: ChinaFotoPress
If you haven’t already, check out the post “These 14 Photos Capture How Polluted China Has Become – And It’s Terrifying!” for more inspiration to start recycling today.
A little bit goes a long way. Picking up a piece of trash when you see it, initiating a recycling program in your town, or lovingly educating others on the benefits of not littering will slowly but surely help to progress the collective consciousness.
While this is very tragic, it would be helpful if half the image links weren’t broken.
no 14. is from a movie called Eylsium and is a compsoed picture
Fuckkkinng retard
If it helps get rid of the problem who cares where it came from. I’m sick of driving down the highway while the jerk ahead is making my world stink with his cigarette the to add insult to injury he bounces the but off my windshield.
I am recycling since over 18 years. The persons are irresponsible to consider sea world as a big trash, the window of their car as a good way to throw butts, plastic glasses, etc. These attitudes are criminal.
My Mom taught me to recycle before there were programs! I remember her cutting every circle of those 6-pack soda can holders.
I guess it was the 1980’s I had a job with Calpirg going door to door raising awareness about Recycling I enjoyed it yet wasn’t good at getting peoples wallets open so they fired me…
Alex I see that too, does anyone else have this problem?
Yeah pics 3, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 22(The Raccoon pic would be 22, not the one after it), 27(which is labeled 26 but is not), and 28(which is labeled 27 but is not) are broken and also misnumbered since they forgot to number the picture of the Raccoon but remembered to number the rest. Whoever did this article did really shoddy work…
You have way too much time on you’re hands. Put some of the effort you waste like this into something productive. Like shutting up!
This is so sad:/ I am recycling since I was a kid and I hate this. Plastic bags and unwanted materials everywhere. >.<
Its is so sad all over the world but its the governments of these counrty ok. We are just as bad most come from other country but we keep letting it gon and on so when can we stop it ok. It need to hurry up but its going to come a time that it will not happen but there are ways to stop this but once again our government will not let it happen ok. There the antichrist for sure the government they are just that devils