Oceans

Plastic Bag Bans Actually Work, Study of European Waters Shows

Plastic Bag Bans Actually Work, Study of European Waters Shows

If you ever feel like the world’s plastic nightmare might never end, a new study shows proof that plastic pollution legislation actually works. There are significantly fewer plastic bags on the seafloor ever since a number of European countries introduced fees on the items, according to a 25-year study from the UK government’s Centre for […]

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    We’re Drowning in Seas of Plastic

    We’re Drowning in Seas of Plastic

    The fossil fuel era must end, or it will spell humanity’s end. The threat isn’t just from pollution and accelerating climate change. Rapid, wasteful exploitation of these valuable resources has also led to a world choked in plastic. Almost all plastics are made from fossil fuels, often by the same companies that produce oil and […]

    85,000 Petition Supermarket Giant to Open Plastic-Free Aisle

    85,000 Petition Supermarket Giant to Open Plastic-Free Aisle

    An online petition calling on the nation’s largest supermarket chain to open a plastic-free aisle has surpassed 85,000 signatures. The Care2 petition, launched less than a week ago, asks Kroger Co. to curb plastic packaging in its 2,800 branches. The campaigners were inspired to take action after Dutch grocery store chain Ekoplaza launched the world’s […]

    U.S. Asks China to ‘Immediately Halt’ Ban on Foreign Waste

    U.S. Asks China to ‘Immediately Halt’ Ban on Foreign Waste

    Last year, China—the world’s largest importer of waste—announced it no longer wanted to take in other countries’ trash so it could focus on its own pollution problems. This unexpected policy shift, which took effect Jan. 1, has left exporters in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Germany and other European countries scrambling for solutions for their growing […]

    The Pentagon’s Scary Plan to Militarize Ocean Life

    The Pentagon’s Scary Plan to Militarize Ocean Life

    By Maia Danks The U.S. military has plans to create genetically modified marine organisms that can be used as underwater spies for the military. Fantastic as this idea may seem, the Pentagon’s research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has actually launched a new program that aims to tap into the “natural sensing […]

    More Than 140 Whales Dead After Mass Stranding in Western Australia

    More Than 140 Whales Dead After Mass Stranding in Western Australia

    More than 150 short-finned pilot whales stranded en masse at Hamelin Bay on the west coast of Australia early Friday morning. Most of the whales did not survive after beaching themselves, according to Jeremy Chick, incident controller at Western Australia’s Parks & Wildlife Service. Roughly 100 authorities and trained volunteers raced to save the 15 […]

    Great Pacific Garbage Patch Is Now Twice the Size of Texas

    Great Pacific Garbage Patch Is Now Twice the Size of Texas

    The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) floating off the coast of California now measures 1.6 million square kilometers (about 1 million square miles), according to a startling new study. To put that into perspective, the clump of trash is about the size of three Frances, or twice the size of Texas. Not only that, the […]

    Deep Sea Mining Decisions: Approaching the Point of No Return

    Deep Sea Mining Decisions: Approaching the Point of No Return

    By Sebastian Losada Over the last two weeks, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) has been in discussions in Jamaica. Its mission—to work towards the finalization of exploitation regulations, a so-called mining code, that will allow commercial deep sea mining operations to begin all around the world. In the quest for minerals, deep seabed mining means […]