A BAG containing four sachets of unused intravenous drip solution was washed up on a Bermuda beach this week.

Resident Judith Wadson made the alarming find on Grape Bay where she was walking her dog at Wednesday lunchtime.

The evidence points to the flotsam being part of a cargo of medical products lost from a ship which passed by the island more than three years ago.

A spokeswoman for King Edward VII Memorial Hospital said yesterday that the 100 ml bags of saline solution, manufactured by the Baxter Healthcare Corporation, were not of a type used by the hospital.

And she added that all waste from the hospital was dealt with on site.

Conservationist Dr. David Wingate said the find was an example of the increasing amount of plastic flotsam in the ocean that posed a serious threat to marine turtles in particular.

Deborah Spak, a spokeswoman for the Baxter Healthcare Corporation of Deerfield, Illinois, said the drip bags were most likely among those lost at sea off the Guayama.

The ship ran into a storm in November, 1999, en route from Puerto Rico to Philadelphia and lost part of its cargo which included Baxter products.

For months after the incident, medical products - including potentially dangerous anti-psychotic drugs - were washing up on the Bermuda shoreline and in particular, west-end beaches.

Ms Wadson said she picked up the bag containing the four sachets after her golden retriever Wallace stopped to sniff at the package. "I have never seen anything like this before," said Ms Wadson. "There were four of these drips in a plastic bag, all stuck together, and I didn't really know what to do with them.

"What if a little kid had got to them first, or a dog, or a turtle."

Dr. Wingate, a former Government Conservation Officer and a leading conservationist, said plastic flotsam posed a growing threat to marine wildlife.

"Turtles are known to eat anything that resembles jellyfish," said Dr. Wingate. "So they will often eats things made out of plastic.

"The Aquarium has on display the stomach contents of a trutle found dead. It was packed with plastic items. The turtle was obviously no longer able to eat or digest. This is a worldwide phenomenon."

Dr. Wingate said that despite restrictions on what could be thrown into the sea, plastic items continued to be thrown illegally overboard. During more than four decades working in conservation, Dr. Wingate had seen plastic emerge as a major marine waste problem.

"I saw a problem with oil pollution increase rapidly through the 60's and it then peaked from 1972 to 1974 as international conventions stopped ships from dumping oil at sea," he said.

"I retired as Government Conversation Officer in 2000 and the plastic trash washed up at Nonsuch Island then in one week was more than what we would get in a year back in 1962."

Helium-filled party balloons were a major contributory factor in the flotsam problem, added Dr. Wingate.

"These things can fly for miles, so even if you let them off at a party in Nebraska, they can end up in the ocean," Dr. Wingate said.

"The Bermuda Aubodon Society has lobbied Governmet to ban the use of helium for party balloons. It is something frivolous that poses a threat to the survival of our turtles."