The Ocean Cleanup, which has raised $35 million in donations to fund the project, including from Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, will deploy 60 free-floating barriers in the Pacific Ocean by 2020.
Plastisphere
Microplastics and the Food Chain
Dr Ruth Barnich, Principal Taxonomist at environmental consultancy Thomson Ecology explores tackling the issue of microplastics, with a focus on how we can better assess their impact on the environment and the food chain The presence of plastic… Read More ›
Hawaii Seeks Marine Plastics Solution
Prevention starts when consumers refuse to use plastic, or lawmakers try to ban it bag by bag. Also following the adage of reduce, reuse, and recycle what you don’t refuse. But much of the trash that comes ashore appears to come from foreign places or as the detritus from industries notorious for ocean litter.
“Blue Planet II” Tackles Plastic Pollution
Humans are already eating plastic from the sea too. The average person who eats seafood swallows up to 11,000 pieces of microplastic every year, according to a study by researchers at the University of Ghent. As Prince Charles put it at a recent Our Ocean summit, “plastic is very much on the menu”.
Plastic Debris Swarms Arctic Ocean
Hundreds of tonnes of plastic are cluttering the once pristine Arctic Ocean and doing great damage to the planet, a new report has found. On top of the danger of fish and other wildlife swallowing the plastic, the material contains… Read More ›
UN Launches Clean Seas Campaign
cientists say that the equivalent of a dump truck load of plastic is deposited in the world’s oceans every minute, and this quantity will only increase as consumption and population grow, too. By 2050, it’s said there will be more plastic than fish in the seas. The UN writes, “As many as 51 trillion microplastic particles – 500 times more than stars in our galaxy – litter our seas, seriously threatening marine wildlife.”
Plastic Smog Continues to Spread in Oceans
An OP-ED by Dr. Chad Nelsen, Surfrider CEO Every single time I go for a surf or a swim in the ocean in Southern California, I find plastic floating in the sea. I usually grab the plastic bag, wrapper or… Read More ›
San Francisco Bans Foam Products
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously voted to outlaw a host of commonly used foam products, in a move hailed as the nation’s most extensive such ban. The ban applies to polystyrene food packaging, packing peanuts, to-go… Read More ›
Biologist Equates Plastics in Environment to DDT Contamination
–Visit Neptune 911 For Kids to learn more about Patricia Newman’s “Plastic, Ahoy!” A prominent Canadian marine biologist has warned of a second “silent spring” — this time in the world’s oceans — due to the vast amount of plastic… Read More ›
Science Journal Publishes Plastics in Ocean Study
Some eight million metric tons of plastic waste makes its way into the world’s oceans each year, and the amount of the debris is likely to increase greatly over the next decade unless nations take strong measures to dispose of… Read More ›
Neptune 911! 