STOP BUYING and COLLECTING SEA SHELLS - AVOID PURCHASING CRAFTS MADE OF SHELLS

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - SEA SHELL COLLECTING and CRAFTS HARMING OCEAN SEALIFE ECOLOGY 

Excerpt: In the little coastal town of Kanyakumari, in southern India, mountains of newly harvested mollusk shells - living animals still inside them - lie drying out near a sun-drenched beach.  Next up for these seashells : a dunking for a few hours in large cats of oil and acid to clean them.  Any remaining flesh or scaly growth is then scraped off each shell by hand by one of hundreds of local o, and they're given another soaking in oil. After a final hand-polishing, many are shipped to artisans in nearby towns who craft jewelry and other memeotos to sell to tourists.  The remaining shells are destined for elsewhere in India and abroad.

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My opinion is if a shell or item that includes shells, such as shelled mirrors, has made it all the way to a charity thrift store, then OK, buy it, but there are so many ways to use draw, paint, mache, or use other techniques to image shells, buying ones that involved killing the animals inside, hurting the ocean n and sea creature ecology is wrong.