A COUNTY MEATH teacher has taken to Facebook to share images a shocking discovery she made during a weekend trip away to a popular beach in Ireland.
Suzanne Kavanagh had been enjoying a camping trip to Kilmore Quay with a close friend when she came across an alarming sight during a walk on the beach.
"To our horror we found this beautiful beach plagued with plastic; remains of bbqs, picnics and marine waste." she wrote on Facebook.
"500 metres from the car park we found a dead dolphin."
Suzanne went on to chronicle the mess left behind in an attempt to highlight the damage being done by plastic waste.
"Approximately 260 dolphins strand on our coasts yearly, it's not confirmed that these mammals die due to plastic but plastic pollution is a major issue on our Irish shores," she added.
Suzanne called on the public to consider how they use plastic and what they can do to reduce their usage of it.
She also urged people to do their part for the planet by picking up three pieces of plastic waste every time they visit a park, beach or shared public space.
It's estimated that around eight million pieces of plastic pollution find their way into our oceans every day.
In 1950, the world's population of 2.5 billion produced 1.5 million tons of plastic; in 2016, a global population of more than 7 billion people produced over 320 million tons of plastic.
This is set to double by 2034.
