People’s propensity to discard plastic bags and other trash indiscriminately has serious consequences for animals everywhere and especially those in captivity. Sights like this can be seen in many zoos in India:
Instances of animals eating plastic bags and having health complications have happened several times. A spotted deer died at the Aringnar Anna Zoological Park, Vandalur, after eating enormous quantities of plastic which was discovered upon an autopsy. A Hippopotamus was found with a plastic bottle stuck in its teeth.
One of the common reasons cited by people for throwing trash everywhere has been that they do not have a bag to collect and throw the trash in a trash can. In order to make it easy for visitors to discard trash responsibly and to save the animals , Sharon Plywoods has been distributing paper bags at the entrance to the Aringnar Anna Zoological Park, Vandalur, for the past several years. Thousands of such bags have been distributed over the years and this has had a visible impact on the cleanliness of the zoo.
Sharon discourages single-use plastic and undertakes several social responsibility projects to create awareness about this and to encourage the habit of responsible plastic usage.