By Mariana Fuentes Have you ever considered that small pieces of plastic less than 5 millimeters long, or smaller than a pencil eraser head, called microplastics, can affect large marine vertebrates like sea turtles? My research team first discovered this disturbing fact when we started to quantify the amount and type of microplastic at loggerhead […]
The proliferation of microplastics in the ocean has led to concerns that they might work their way up the food chain to us. But when researchers at Heriot-Watt University set out to investigate that concern, they found that plastics in our own homes pose a much greater threat to humans. The results of the study, […]
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 […]
If we don’t act now, plastic pollution in the world’s oceans is projected to increase three-fold within seven years, according to a startling new report. The Future of the Sea report, released Wednesday for the UK government, found that human beings across the globe produce more than 300 million metric tons of plastic per year. […]
You now have another good reason to avoid bottled water. An investigation on brands from around the world determined that the water is often contaminated with tiny pieces of plastic. The new study, conducted by journalism organization Orb Media and researchers at the State University of New York at Fredonia, has already prompted the World […]
Scientists and environmentalists have raised the alarm about microplastics polluting our oceans. Now, researchers at the University of Manchester have revealed more details of how they might get there. The first ever catchment-wide microplastic study, published March 12 in Nature Geoscience, assessed microplastic contamination in the sediments of river beds along 40 sites in northwest […]
British diver Rich Horner posted footage of his plastic-infested swim off Bali’s Manta Point on Saturday. “The ocean currents brought us in a lovely gift of a slick of jellyfish, plankton, leaves, branches, fronds, sticks, etc…. Oh, and some plastic,” Horner wrote on Facebook. “Some plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic cups, plastic sheets, plastic buckets, […]
By Valerie Vande Panne Do you know where your clothes came from? No, not the store, the label or the brand. Or China, India or Vietnam. I mean, do you know who made your clothing? Do you know what your clothes are made from? Or where the fiber in your clothing came from? The cotton, […]
Microplastics can really be found everywhere, even in the stomachs of creatures living deep underwater. Marine scientists from the National University of Ireland (NUI) in Galway found the plastic bits in 73 percent of 233 deep-sea fish collected from the Northwest Atlantic Ocean—one of the highest microplastic frequencies in fish ever recorded worldwide. For the […]
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