As part of its worldwide push “For a Strawless Ocean,” Alaska Airlines announced Monday that its 44 million yearly passengers will fly in “strawless skies.” Starting July 16, the leading U.S. airline on the 2017 Dow Jones Sustainability Index will stop distributing single-use plastic stirring straws and citrus picks in its lounges and on its […]
The growing movement to stamp out plastic straws is spreading to San Francisco. Supervisors Katy Tang and Ahsha Safai plan to unveil on Tuesday legislation that prohibits restaurants, bars and coffee shops from serving plastic straws, stirrers or cocktail sticks with beverages, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Instead of the disposable items, the lawmakers suggested […]
A dolphin was found dead on a beach in Gungur, a coastal town in The Gambia, aggravating local concerns over pollution being dumped into the ocean by a Chinese fish processing factory, Africa News reported Sunday. Heartbreaking photos of the incident were tweeted out by Togo human rights advocate Farida Nabourema Saturday. A dead dolphin […]
Man-made trash has sunk to new depths. A recent paper published in the journal Marine Policy details the staggering amount of plastic and other debris found at the bottom of the world’s deepest ocean trench. At least 3,000 pieces of litter, with some dating back 30 years, can be found in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana […]
The National Marine Fisheries Service protected rare Taiwanese humpback dolphins on Tuesday, listing the species as “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act. The decision comes in response to a March 2016 petition from the Animal Welfare Institute, Center for Biological Diversity and WildEarth Guardians seeking U.S. protections to help prevent the extinction of a population […]
Each year, 8 million tons of plastic leaches into our oceans. That trash is inadvertently consumed by fish and other marine life, thus impacting the larger food chain. In fact, studies have already found that sea salt can be rich in plastic and that we likely consume the tiny bits that get embedded in many […]
The Chicago White Sox are the first team in Major League Baseball to ban plastic straws. Drinks served during games at Guaranteed Rate Field no longer come with the single-use plastic, which pollutes our oceans, lakes and rivers and can cause harm to aquatic creatures. Biodegradable straws are provided upon request. The program kicked off […]
The devastating consequences climate change is already having on coral reefs is well known, but now scientists have discovered that yet another unique marine ecosystem is threatened by rising carbon dioxide levels. A paper published in Ecology this month based on research led by the University of Adelaide found that ocean carbon dioxide levels projected […]
By Donald Scavia Scientists have identified a dead zone as large as Florida in the Gulf of Oman, which connects the Arabian Sea to the Persian Gulf. Around the world there are more than 400 current dead zones in oceans and lakes, where water contains so little oxygen that aquatic life can’t survive. Dead zones […]