Deep ocean fish are facing a host of health problems that may be due to man-made pollution, according to a new study.
Even as far down as 2,000 feet to one mile beneath the surface, marine fish are suffering from liver pathologies, tumors and other conditions as harmful pollutants are being dumped ...
Plastic bottles lying in the gutter. Grocery bags tangled in branches. Food wrappers scuttling across the ground on a windy day. Although such examples of litter easily come to mind, they only hint at the serious and growing problem of plastic pollution — a problem mostly hidden from view.
The prob...
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?!
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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 ...
Earth now has five or six major ocean garbage patches, and new research suggests they'll continue growing for 'at least the next thousand years.'
After a yacht captain stumbled across the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the late 1990s, scientists soon began finding similar patches of plast...
From the shoreline at North Avenue Beach in Chicago, the blue water of Lake Michigan stretches as far as the eye can see. But beneath that pristine image, there's a barely visible threat, says Jennifer Caddick of the Alliance for the Great Lakes: microbeads.
These tiny bits of plastic, small scrubb...
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...
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...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will study a remote island used as an airstrip in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands that is often littered with plastic debris, the first step in a process that could eventually place it on the list of the country’s most hazardous sites.
In a let...
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 '...
We use plastics in our everyday life to put our things in when we only need something completely temporary. It is also because we would like to be able to know how to properly dispose these things because these can be considered harmful to the environment. It is really something that you need to con...
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...
