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 […]
European Union (EU) member states and lawmakers have reached an agreement to stop exports of certain types of waste, including plastics, to countries outside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) group of mostly rich countries starting in mid-2026. “Exports of certain non-hazardous wastes and mixtures of non-hazardous wastes… will be allowed only to […]
With a rising interest among consumers for more sustainable products, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is in the review process as it considers updates to its Green Guides for the first time in over a decade. The updates are meant to address greenwashing and misinformation around recyclable and renewable product labeling. Although the Green […]
If you are at a sports stadium, you might notice a new logo on recycling bins: that of PureCycle. PureCycle is a U.S.-based company seeking to turn plastic waste into an infinitely recyclable material. Over the last year, the company has partnered with stadiums in Orlando, Cincinnati and Jacksonville on a pilot project to capture […]
One morning, I came out of the shower, reached for my towel and found myself face-to-face with a shelf full of different products. Although I used these things every day, I looked at the shelf as if I had seen it for the first time, and I was horrified. Staring back at me were bottles […]
Environmental organizations Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic have conducted one of the most ambitious voluntary research projects to examine the size of the plastic waste problem in the UK. The results of The Big Plastic Count show that UK households dispose of close to an estimated 100 billion pieces of plastic packaging every year, while recycling […]
Could plastic pollution make you sick? A new study published in Marine Pollution Bulletin found that it might. A research team from the University of Stirling in Scotland found that harmful bacteria including E. coli had colonized sewage waste like wet wipes that washed up on beaches in the area. “We all know that sewage […]
Amazon shareholders rejected a proposal that would have mandated that the company report on how much plastic it used, the plusses of reducing plastic use and the minuses of continuing its current habits. This was just one of 15 environmental or social-justice proposals that shareholders voted down at the company’s annual meeting Wednesday, even as […]
The highly social and endangered Asian elephant (Elephas maximus indicus) lives in matriarch-led groups and, in addition to foods that can be found in the wild like grasses and the roots, bark and leaves of trees, enjoys foods cultivated by humans like rice and bananas, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Unfortunately, remnants of these […]