Plastic waste has penetrated deeply into the life of animals in the city. The British Daily Mail says a squirrel was caught taking plastic garbage and building a house in the middle of Herringey, London.
Not long ago, local photographer Henry Jacobs found a squirrel with a bag full of plastic bags while walking along the riverside along Herringey. He later found out that the intention behind the squirrel's behavior was to make a nest.
Squirrels usually collect twigs or dry leaves to make nests, but as plastic waste overflows, squirrels have been built using garbage instead of branches.
Changes in the behavior of squirrels cause the squirrels to use rubbish as a material to build houses. Additionally, it was revealed in a 2018 study by Indian scientists that this change is significant. Dr Mewa Singh, a researcher at the Institute of Biopsychology at the University of Mysore, India, found that Indian palm squirrels, which live in urban areas in the past, use plastic waste as nesting material.
"Squirrel has been shown to use garbage, such as plastic bags and cigarette butts, for nesting parts of the nest instead of twigs or leaves." He also observed squirrels trimming the plastic trash they brought to the right size and shape. "Only one out of every four nests is made of natural materials, not plastic waste," he added.
The researchers concluded that "the proportion of artificial materials used to build squirrel nests are closely related to the degree of urbanization" and concluded that it was a struggle to survive by adapting to changes in a litter-rich habitat.
However, this struggle does not necessarily lead to survival. In 2018, an endangered red squirrel was found dead in a plastic bottle in a national park in Scotland, UK. A local animal rights group said a squirrel caught in a sharp plastic bottle with its bottom open.
The squirrel explained that the squirrel seemed to die without eating out of the food left in the broken bottle. "The animals die in pain because of the plastic that people don't think about and throw away," he said. "It's just an example of how dangerous garbage is like waste."