By: Christi Hughes In January 2016, a young sea turtle named Grace was found floating cold and listless next to a dock in Awendaw, South Carolina. She was rescued by compassionate locals to the South Carolina Aquarium Sea Turtle Care Center™ for life-saving medical treatment. Grace, who was the size of a dinner plate, ultimately required exploratory surgery to remove a piece of flexible plastic about the size of a silver dollar– very likely from a single-use plastic grocery bag – from her intestinal tract. Luckily, Grace made a full recovery and was released back into the ocean in July 2016.
While only the size of a dinner plate herself, veterinarians at the Sea Turtle Care Center at the South Carolina Aquarium removed a piece of plastic the size of a silver dollar from Grace's intestinal tract. She likely ingested a single-use plastic bag that had been improperly recycled or ...
