77 kg of ice cream cups and spoons removed from a cow’s stomach

Team Udayavani, Dec 2, 2021, 11:25 AM IST

Source: TOI

The expanding plastic problem is posing a significant threat to the animal population. Stray cows are one of the most vulnerable species when it comes to picking through openly discarded plastic rubbish. A sick cow was recently discovered to be accumulating 77 kilograms of plastic trash in her stomach. According to the Times of India, veterinarians in Gujarat’s Anand region extracted the garbage from the cow’s stomach, which included ice cream cups, and plastic glasses.

At a veterinary hospital in Anand, a team of veterinarians performed a two-and-a-half-hour surgery. According to the report, the sick cow was taken to the hospital by an NGO. The plastic debris retrieved from the cow’s stomach, according to Dr Pinesh Parikh, a member of the surgery team, is largely junk that people discard on the roadside after eating their meals. Citizens, on the other hand, pay no attention to the fact that stray cows, in their search for food, mistakenly swallow plastic.

People’s bad habits have resulted in incidences of livestock being ill after eating plastic. Every week, this veterinary facility in Anand receives three to four cases of sick cows who ate plastic from roadside bins.

“Each time, the waste varies from 10 kg to even 55-60 kg. We have even come across cases where cows have accidentally consumed plastic ropes that people usually throw away or dump on the roadside,” Dr Parikh, head of the Department of Veterinary and Radiology at the veterinary college affiliated to Kamdhenu University, was quoted as saying by Times of India.

Dr. Parikh explained how plastic trash affects stray cattle by stating that cows get indigestion after consuming plastic. Cows’ digesting strength deteriorates with time as a result of their inability to digest plastic, causing them to become ill.