The crew of the Greenpeace ship MY Arctic Sunrise voyage into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch document plastics and other marine debris. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a soupy mix of plastics and microplastics, now twice the size of Texas, in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean. Justin Hofman / Greenpeace
By Perry Wheeler
Throughout this year, people all over the globe united to take on plastic pollution. Greenpeace supporters have asked their local supermarkets to phase out throwaway plastics, helped us reach 3 million signatures to companies like Coca-Cola, Nestle and Unilever demanding they invest in real solutions and participated in beach cleanups and brand audits to name the worst corporate plastic polluters.
Debris from a fishing net seen underwater with MY Arctic Sunrise ship in the background. Justin Hofman / Greenpeace
By Anna Wagner
One of Greenpeace's foundational principles is bearing witness. We use our bodies and our voices to shine a spotlight on injustice and to tell the story of what we see in a powerful way that makes inaction no longer possible.
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 gas.
The Ocean Cleanup—the ambitious Dutch venture devoted to ridding the world's oceans of plastics—announced this week that it has raised $21.7 million in donations since last November.
