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With new research showing the major role that rivers play in bringing plastic pollution to the oceans, countries are looking for ways to tackle the root causes of the problem in their own waterways. In response, the Sri Lankan government is set to partner with the UN Environment Programme’s (UNE ...
Planting trees without plastic tree guards should be standard practice, a UK study has found, as leading conservation charities and landowners seek sustainable alternatives to reduce plastic waste.
Fish hooked on meth? It's a catchy headline that made the rounds a few weeks ago, but it represents a serious and growing problem. Our rivers and streams have become a soup of hundreds of drugs — mostly pharmaceuticals — that come from the treated water released from wastewater facilities.
Discharges of raw sewage by Southern Water into a protected natural harbour risk causing an environmental catastrophe, say campaigners.
Plastic bottles dominate waste in the ocean, with an estimated 1m of them reaching the sea every minute. The biggest culprit is polyethylene terephthalate (Pet) bottles.
Coca-Cola bottles and cans were the most prevalent branded litter on beaches in the UK, a report has found, as campaigners call on the government to get on with introducing a deposit return scheme.
Wastewater exposes plants and wildlife to hundreds of chemical compounds. Researchers are learning about potential side effects and solutions.
Plastic waste in the world's oceans is releasing an additive which may be "sexually exciting" hermit crabs, researchers say. The waters off the North Yorkshire coast have been found by scientists at the University of Hull to contain a chemical called oleamide leaking from plastics.
Natural silence -- the kind when you hear nothing but the sound of nature around you -- is becoming increasingly scarce. The rumblings of man-made noise can be heard even in the remote corners of national parks and deep in the Arctic Ocean.
This month is Plastic Free July which is celebrated across the globe. It encourages millions of people to be part of the solution to the single-use plastic waste problem at home, work, school, and even at restaurants. So, we can have cleaner streets, oceans, and beautiful communities.
This year saw many people rediscovering an interest in gardening, digging in the dirt and maybe even harvesting vegetables from a garden plot. But around the Puget Sound, not all garden soils are created equal. Soil, particularly in urban areas, can hold contaminants that are unhealthy for peopl ...
Walmart and other retail giants import millions of goods on polluting cargo ships. Take a look around your home and you’ll likely find plenty of goods that traveled by cargo ship to your doorstep. A set of IKEA plates made in China. A dresser full of pandemic-era loungewear, ordered on Target an ...
The amount of waste generated by humanity represents a growing threat to our ecosystems and economies. The output of solid waste has grown from 25 gigatons (yes, that’s 25 billion tons) in 1990 to 86 gigatons in 2020 – and a projected 140 gigatons by 2050.
Not willing to rest their laurels on the theft of the future, the fossil fuel industry is now salting the earth with forever chemicals. In a bombshell exposé from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and the New York Times last week it was revealed that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances ...
A new model tracking the vertical movement of algae-covered microplastic particles offers hope in the fight against plastic waste in our oceans.
Systemic change to the entire plastics economy is needed to halt ocean plastic pollution. That's the overwhelming message from a new United Nations report, which says to reduce the amount of plastic entering the ocean, we must reduce the amount of plastic in the system, and that fragmented and p ...
More manatees have died already this year than in any other year in Florida’s recorded history, primarily from starvation due to the loss of seagrass beds, state officials have said.
Waste-strewn beaches and sea creatures entangled in plastic debris are the most visible forms of ocean plastic pollution, but waste mismanagement is only part of the crisis. The other part consists of microscopic particles of plastic that collect in ocean habitats and concentrate in food chains.
The town of Whitstable sits on the north Kent coast, home to the oysters that have brought it worldwide fame from waters that are some of the most protected in Europe.
"The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry"—this famous paraphrase of Scottish poet Robert Burns sometimes sums up human ingenuity. That is exactly what happened when a county in Washington State decided to replace all of its county-owned streetlights with LEDs, at least partially in an ...
Plastic pollution is a global problem and it’s reaching such proportions that we may not be able to reverse its harmful effects unless we drastically reduce the amount of plastic waste that makes its way into the environment.
The oceans allow the transport of most of the world trade, they are an important source of food and employment. Costa Rica is home to 3.5% of the world’s marine biodiversity. Its marine territory is 11 times larger than the land part. Despite these figures, Alejandra Villalobos, executive direct ...
Plastic bottles have been converted into vanilla flavouring using genetically engineered bacteria, the first time a valuable chemical has been brewed from waste plastic.
Water companies are being allowed to unlawfully discharge raw sewage into rivers at a scale at least 10 times greater than Environment Agency prosecutions indicate, according to analysis to be presented to the government.
A plant-based material may be the solution to replace single-use plastics, according to a team from the University of Cambridge, UK (1). The team has developed a new sustainable and scalable material, which is as strong as standard plastic.
Microplastics are fragments of plastic less than half a centimetre long, often contained in toiletries or shedding from polyester clothing. They pose a particularly serious threat to marine ecosystems and can absorb heavy metals and pollutants, whilst also travelling up food chains to humans wit ...
Global plastics production declined slightly in 2020 as a result of the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, only the third time since World War II that output has fallen, an industry body said Thursday.
The world’s soils, which provide 95% of humanity’s food, are “under great pressure”, according to a UN report on soil pollution.Soils are also the largest active store of carbon, after the oceans, and therefore crucial in fighting the climate crisis.
Dozens of birds have been killed through poisoning amid concerns that methods to eradicate a growing mouse plague in eastern Australia are hitting other wildlife.
Until last week Lucien Justin, the chair of the Jude Watta fisheries committee in Wattala, near Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, lived a simple life.
Environmental change is happening so quickly that wild organisms can't keep up, and face substantial challenges. But some organisms may be able to adapt surprisingly rapidly to new circumstances.
A chemical-laden cargo ship is sinking off the coast of Sri Lanka, sparking fears of an environmental disaster. The Singapore-registered X-Press Pearl had been on fire for almost two weeks before the blaze was put out this week.
The Coca Cola Company and The Ocean Clean-Up project have announced they will be collaborating on a ground-breaking partnership to clean up some of the world’s worst polluting rivers - and collect plastic waste which can be recycled to make new bottles
Plastic pollution threatens marine life in many ways, from entangling fish and seabirds to wreaking havoc on their digestive tracts when they mistake it for food.
Over the past few decades, the world has been witnessing an exponential rise in plastic pollution, which acts as a major disrupter to the integrity of ecosystems around the globe.
The Scottish government appears ready to approve a banned insecticide blamed for destroying bee populations for use in Scottish salmon farms, according to internal documents seen by the Guardian, as MEPs warn of its potentially “devastating” impact on aquatic life.
Amazon is under pressure to reduce its plastic footprint, as shareholders prepare to vote on Wednesday on a resolution calling for it to disclose how much of its plastic packaging ends up in the environment.
In cities, heavy rains wash away the gunk collecting on sidewalks and roads, picking up all kinds of debris. However, the amount of microplastic pollution swept away by this runoff is currently unknown. Now, researchers in ACS ES&T Water report that stormwater can be a large source of microplast ...
A team of volcanologists who observed the colossal 2018 eruption of Kīlauea, Hawai'i, have tracked how potentially toxic metals carried in its gas plumes were transported away from the volcano to be deposited on the landscape.
Plastic pollution and other ocean debris are a complex global environmental problem. Every year, ten million tons of plastic are estimated to be mismanaged, resulting in entry into the ocean, of which half will float initially. Yet, only 0.3 million tons of plastic can be found floating on the s ...
Roughly 8 million metric tons of plastic enter the ocean each year, and the U.S. is one of the top contributors to plastic pollution. It's been found in the seafloor and surface water, on beaches and shorelines. Microplastics—tiny plastics less than 5 millimeters in size —are pervasive worldwide ...
UK plastic waste is being exported to Turkey and then illegally dumped and burned, according to a report. Greenpeace said about 40% - or 210,000 tonnes - of the UK's plastic waste exports were sent to Turkey last year.
The study presents a new line of research, since so far there have been very few studies that have focused on loud and intermittent noises of a recreational nature, as is the case of traditional festivals, and the effects they cause on urban fauna.
Turning existing city infrastructure green by installing plants can filter out fine dust and noise, reduce urban heat island effects, and even reduce stress. All it takes is regreening 20 percent of façades and rooftops for every fifth building in a city.
Food production, primarily the raising of livestock, causes poor air quality that is responsible for about 16,000 deaths a year in the United States, roughly the same number from other sources of air pollution, including transportation and electricity generation, according to research published ...
A new study has found nearly 80 percent of the plastic pollution in the oceans come from 1,000 rivers around the world. While it was first thought that a handful of large continental rivers were the main culprits, contributing the most in terms of plastic emissions, a new model has shown a mix o ...
As pandemic lockdowns went into effect in March 2020 and millions of Americans began working from home rather than commuting to offices, heavy traffic in America's most congested urban centers—like Boston—suddenly ceased to exist. Soon afterwards, the air was noticeably cleaner.