Earth Protect Blog

  Gov. Jay Inslee Signs Bill to Reduce Unnecessary Plastic and Address Growing Plastic Pollution Crisis Press Release Date Monday, May 17, 2021 Location: Seattle, WA Contacts:Ben Enticknap: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 503.329.4465 Jamie Karnik: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 907.586.4050 Today, Go...

Shared from the 9/25/2020 The Denver Post eEditioBy Adam MinterBloomberg Opinion   Adam Minter is a columnist at Bloomberg Opinion. Is plastics recycling a lie? That’s the question at the heart of a new investigation into whether Americans have been filling up their blue bins with misplaced ...

The Ocean Cleanup, the Dutch non-profit organization that made waves in 2015 with its grand plans and new approach to ridding the oceans of plastic, last weekend launched the world’s first ocean cleanup system from the San Francisco Bay. “System 001”headed to a location 240 nautical miles offshore f...

Vancouver city council this week targeted single-use plastic items, such as straws, but researchers wonder why the straw has been singled out when there are hundreds of plastic items making their way into the environment.Researchers have cited balloons, food containers, plastic cutlery and piec...

Over the past few decades, it has become a well-known fact that the packaging industry has had a huge impact on the environment. With each passing year, tons of plastic waste from packaging containers and bags end up in landfills and the ocean, at increasingly alarming rates. Marine life is under t...

It may be time to sound the alarm and possibly try and find a cleaning solution. A recent study shows that there is much more plastic polluting the world’s oceans than researchers have previously estimated. And the number is staggering.   In what is being described as the most comprehensive m...

A major new study of the world's oceans has reached a shocking conclusion: Thanks to humans, there are now over 5 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing more than 250,000 tons, floating in water around the world. With a global population of about 7.2 billion, that's nearly 700 pie...

Who's flushing plastic pollution into the oceans, creating tiny time bombs that kill fish, birds and sea turtles ingesting what they think is food? That question has been around since 1997, when the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" was discovered, and a new mathematical model could provide the tool nee...

 To reduce fire hazard in the United States, wildland managers often utilize the silvicultural practice of mechanically cutting woody shrubs and suppressed trees (ladder fuels). These cuttings and other post-logging debris are then burned during periods of low fire danger in order to dispose of...

The tiny plastic particles polluting our seas are not only orally ingested by marine creatures, but also enter their systems through their gills, according to a new study led by the University of Exeter.   Scientists also discovered that when microplastics are drawn in through this ...

According to a new study, 99% of plastic waste that enters the ocean cannot be located. While initially hearing that there's less plastic in the ocean than we believed sounds like great news, it's actually a frightening prospect. After all, if the plastic isn't in the ocean ... where is it going?! ...

Some Norwegian participants in last week’s oceans conference in the U.S. said international policymakers demonstrated a commitment to ocean health but more research is needed to show how emerging Arctic industries affect nearby water ecology.  The two-day “Our Ocean” conference ...

The stomach of fledgling mutton birds, or Short-tailed Shearwaters, on Victoria’s Phillip Island have been found to contain an average of  more than seven particles of plastic per bird – weighing some 113 mg. This, says La Trobe University’s Dr Mark Carey, may affect the life cycle of this spe...

A new plant in Glendale, Arizona promises to triple the amount of trash the city recycles each year when it begins operations in April. The facility, which is being built by Chicago-based company, Vieste, will be located on 6 acres of Glendale's landfill, just a few miles west of the University...

California has become an interesting test-case for both approaches to one plastic problem.Back in 2006, California passed a law that mandated a system for recycling plastic shopping bags. Today, supermarkets and other large stores have receptacles where plastic bags can be returned for recycling. H...

There's more plastic floating around the ocean than any other type of marine debris—that we know. What's harder to figure out is just how much is out there. A recent survey of marine plastic debris found something surprising: Nearly 99% of it was missing. "We were expecting values in excess of one ...

When did everything become Plastic? When I was a kid, we collected shells on the beach, not plastic trash. There wasn't enough disposable plastic in those days for plastics to collect on the beaches. Plastic bags came into heavy use in American grocery stores when I was in high school in the late '...

Very exciting news for Los Angeles. The Los Angeles City Council voted on Tuesday, June 18 to approve a ban on single-use plastic shopping bags. The Council voted 11 to 1 in favor of the ordinance, and a final vote is scheduled for next week. Last year, the Council voted 13 to 1 to move f...

    Global plastic production has increased from 1.5 million tonnes per year in 1950, to 245 million tonnes in 2008, reveals MEP The European Commission recently presented a green paper on plastic waste. Plastic has become a symbol of our throw-away society. The use of plastic has sky...

When I was a kid, you could come to New York City and buy a big soda in a large styrofoam cup. (You could also get murdered a lot more easily or score some drugs or afford a place in Soho, but that’s not my point here.) Big soda kept cool in a nice big cup — paradise, in its way. Reuters / Eduard...