Pollution

Swiss air quality monitoring company IQAir has released its sixth World Air Quality Report, detailing 2023’s most polluted countries and territories in the world. In compiling the report, more than 30,000 monitoring stations in 134 nations, territories and regions were examined by IQAir scientists, a press release from IQAir said. Of these, 124 — 92.5 […]

The Oregon Outback, an area of southeastern Oregon, has earned a new designation as the largest of the Dark Sky Sanctuaries not just in the U.S., but internationally. DarkSky International, a nonprofit organization with a mission to educate on and minimize light pollution, has certified that Phase 1 of the Oregon Outback International Dark Sky […]

A new study warns that athletes playing sports on artificial turf could become covered in per- and polyfluorinated substances, or PFAS, present in the turf. Researchers from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) conducted a small-scale study of young athletes, as well as their coaches, who played soccer on an artificial turf field. The results […]

Quick Key Facts Ocean Plastic: The Basics  The Earth’s oceans are teeming with life — and with plastic. In fact, by 2050, it’s expected that there will be even more plastic in the ocean than fish. Adding to the 150 million tons already in marine environments, eight million tons of plastic reaches our oceans every […]

According to a new report by European scientists, plastics — from food packaging to furniture, clothing and medical equipment — contain thousands more chemicals than environmental agencies had previously estimated, raising concerns about consumer safety and pollution, reported Reuters. More than 13,000 plastic chemicals had been identified by the United Nations Environment Programme, but the […]

According to key findings from the International Energy Agency (IEA)’s latest Annual Methane Tracker, in 2023, global methane emissions from fossil fuels stayed close to a record high despite new global reduction pledges. Human activities like agriculture, oil and gas production and the accumulation of food waste in landfills produce methane — a much more […]

A new study led by researchers at the University of Surrey in England has identified methods that, when applied together, could reduce air pollution in classrooms by up to 36%. Researchers tested air purifying methods for two classrooms in a school located about 10 meters from a highway that has an average of 31,067 cars […]

Researchers have discovered a variety of large plastic pieces in the guts of dead sea turtles found in the eastern Mediterranean. Some of these plastic items include bottle caps and a Halloween toy in the shape of a witch finger. A team led by the University of Exeter and the North Cyprus Society for the […]