Eye-Catching Designs Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles
The company sells a range of eco-friendly items like leggings, rash guards, and board shorts that are made using recycled post-consumer plastic bottles. There are currently 16 causes represented by distinct marine-life patterns, from whale shark research and invasive lionfish removal to sockeye salmon monitoring and abalone restoration.
One such organization is Get Inspired, a nonprofit that specializes in ocean restoration and environmental education. Get Inspired founder, marine biologist Nancy Caruso, says supporting on-the-ground efforts is one thing that sets Waterlust apart, like their apparel line that supports Get Inspired abalone restoration programs.
"All of us [conservation partners] are doing something," Caruso said. "We're not putting up exhibits and talking about it — although that is important — we're in the field."
Waterlust not only helps its conservation partners financially so they can continue their important work. It also helps them get the word out about what they're doing, whether that's through social media spotlights, photo and video projects, or the informative note card that comes with each piece of apparel.
"They're doing their part for sure, pushing the information out across all of their channels, and I think that's what makes them so interesting," Caruso said.
And then there are the clothes, which speak for themselves.
Advocate Apparel to Start Conversations About Conservation
Waterlust's concept of "advocate apparel" encourages people to see getting dressed every day as an opportunity to not only express their individuality and style, but also to advance the conversation around marine science. By infusing science into clothing, people can visually represent species and ecosystems in need of advocacy — something that, more often than not, leads to a teaching moment.
"When people wear Waterlust gear, it's just a matter of time before somebody asks them about the bright, funky designs," said Waterlust's CEO, Patrick Rynne. "That moment is incredibly special, because it creates an intimate opportunity for the wearer to share what they've learned with another."
The idea for the company came to Rynne when he was a Ph.D. student in marine science.
"I was surrounded by incredible people that were discovering fascinating things but noticed that often their work wasn't reaching the general public in creative and engaging ways," he said. "That seemed like a missed opportunity with big implications."
Waterlust initially focused on conventional media, like film and photography, to promote ocean science, but the team quickly realized engagement on social media didn't translate to action or even knowledge sharing offscreen.
Rynne also saw the "in one ear, out the other" issue in the classroom — if students didn't repeatedly engage with the topics they learned, they'd quickly forget them.
"We decided that if we truly wanted to achieve our goal of bringing science into people's lives and have it stick, it would need to be through a process that is frequently repeated, fun, and functional," Rynne said. "That's when we thought about clothing."
Support Marine Research and Sustainability in Style
To date, Waterlust has sold tens of thousands of pieces of apparel in over 100 countries, and the interactions its products have sparked have had clear implications for furthering science communication.
For Caruso alone, it's led to opportunities to share her abalone restoration methods with communities far and wide.
"It moves my small little world of what I'm doing here in Orange County, California, across the entire globe," she said. "That's one of the beautiful things about our partnership."
Check out all of the different eco-conscious apparel options available from Waterlust to help promote ocean conservation.
Melissa Smith is an avid writer, scuba diver, backpacker, and all-around outdoor enthusiast. She graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in journalism and sustainable studies. Before joining EcoWatch, Melissa worked as the managing editor of Scuba Diving magazine and the communications manager of The Ocean Agency, a non-profit that's featured in the Emmy award-winning documentary Chasing Coral.
The June 2019 paper in Globalization and Health describes internal emails that were obtained by the public interest group U.S. Right to Know via state public records laws. The documents reveal clear examples of how ILSI advances the interests of the food industry, especially by promoting industry-friendly science and arguments to policymakers. "Researchers have labelled the International Life Sciences Institute an industry front group, after studying thousands of documents," reported the BMJ.
As one example, the paper quotes an email from Alex Malaspina, the former Coca-Cola executive who founded ILSI, lamenting the failure of ILSI Mexico to follow the industry position on soda taxes. Malaspina describes "the mess ILSI Mexico is in because they sponsored in September a sweeteners conference when the subject of soft drinks taxation was discussed. ILSI is now suspending ILSI Mexico, until they correct their ways. A real mess."
2015 email from Alex Malaspina, founder of ILSI.
Malaspina, a former senior vice president at Coca-Cola from 1969-2001, founded ILSI in 1978. Coca-Cola has kept close ties with ILSI ever since. From 2009-2011, the president of ILSI was Michael Ernest Knowles, who was also Coca-Cola's VP of global scientific and regulatory affairs from 2008–2013. In 2015, ILSI's president was Rhona Applebaum, who retired from her job as Coca-Cola's chief health and science officer (and from ILSI) in 2015 after the New York Times and Associated Press reported that Coke funded the nonprofit Global Energy Balance Network to help shift blame for obesity away from sugary drinks.
Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know and reported in a 2016 study revealed that Coke proposed and financed the Global Energy Balance Network as a "weapon" in the "growing war between the pubic health community and private industry" over obesity and the obesity epidemic.
ILSI is funded by its corporate members and company supporters, including leading food and chemical companies such as Coca-Cola, BASF, Bayer, DuPont, Syngenta, Mars, McDonalds, chemical industry trade groups, and many others. In its annual report, ILSI and its branches reported $17,481,251 in expenses for 2017 but did not disclose specific donor information. A document obtained via a state freedom of information request shows corporate contributions to ILSI Global amounting to $2.4 million in 2012. The largest donations were $500,000 from Monsanto and over $500,000 from the pesticide industry trade group, Crop Life International. ILSI's draft 2013 IRS tax returns show $337,000 in donations from Coca-Cola and over $650,000 from six agrichemical companies, BASF, Bayer, Dow, Monsanto, Pioneer Hi Bred and Syngenta.
ILSI Undermined Obesity Fight in China
In January 2019, two papers by Harvard Prof. Susan Greenhalgh revealed ILSI's powerful influence on the Chinese government on issues related to obesity. Prof. Geenhalgh's articles in the Journal of Public Health Policy and the BMJ document how Coca-Cola and other corporations worked through the China branch of ILSI to influence decades of Chinese science and public policy on obesity and diet-related illnesses such as Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
Jan. 9 article in New York Times.
ILSI is so well-placed in China that it operates from inside the government's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing. Dr. Greenhalgh's papers document how Coca-Cola and other Western food and beverage giants "helped shape decades of Chinese science and public policy on obesity and diet-related diseases" by operating through ILSI to cultivate key Chinese officials "in an effort to stave off the growing movement for food regulation and soda taxes that has been sweeping the west," reported Andrew Jacobs in the New York Times.
Recent studies on ILSI's influence and approach can also be found in Critical Public Health and the Milbank Quarterly.
ILSI Sugar Study “Right Out of the Tobacco Industry’s Playbook”
In 2016, public health experts denounced an ILSI-funded sugar study published in a prominent medical journal that presented a "scathing attack on global health advice to eat less sugar," reported Anahad O'Connor in The New York Times. The ILSI-funded study argued that warnings to cut sugar are based on weak evidence and cannot be trusted.
The Times story quoted Marion Nestle, a professor at New York University who studies conflicts of interest in nutrition research, on the ILSI study: "This comes right out of the tobacco industry's playbook: cast doubt on the science," Nestle said. "This is a classic example of how industry funding biases opinion. It's shameful."
ILSI has also been accused of working directly on the tobacco industry playbook to thwart public safety measures to reduce smoking. A July 2000 report by an independent committee of the World Health Organization outlined a number of ways in which the tobacco industry attempted to undermine WHO tobacco control efforts, including using scientific groups to influence WHO's decision-making and to manipulate scientific debate surrounding the health effects of tobacco. ILSI played a key role in these efforts, according to a case study about ILSI from the WHO Tobacco Free Initiative. "Findings indicate that ILSI was used by certain tobacco companies to thwart tobacco control policies. Senior office bearers in ILSI were directly involved in these actions," according to the case study.
ILSI Leaders Played Key Role in Defending Glyphosate as Chairs of WHO Panel
In May 2016, ILSI was caught "in a conflict of interest row over glyphosate cancer risk," reported Arthur Neslen in the Guardian, after revelations that the vice president of ILSI Europe, Prof. Alan Boobis, was also chairman of the UN Joint Meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) panel that found Monsanto's chemical glyphosate was unlikely to pose a cancer risk through diet. The co-chair of the JMPR panel, Prof. Angelo Moretto, was a board member of ILSI's Health and Environment Services Institute. Neither of the chairs declared their ILSI leadership roles as conflicts of interest, despite the significant financial contributions ILSI has received from Monsanto and the pesticide industry trade group.
ILSI’s Cozy Ties at U.S. CDC
In June 2016, U.S. Right to Know reported that Dr. Barbara Bowman, director of a U.S. Centers for Disease Control division charged with preventing heart disease and stroke, tried to help ILSI's founder Alex Malaspina influence World Health Organization officials to back off policies to reduce sugar consumption. Bowman suggested people and groups for Malaspina to talk to, and solicited his comments on some CDC summaries of reports, the emails show. (Bowman stepped down after our first article was published reporting on these ties.)
A January 2019 study in the Milbank Quarterly describes key emails of Malaspina cozying up to Dr. Bowman.
ILSI Influence in India
ILSI has close ties to some Indian government officials and, as in China, the nonprofit has pushed similar messaging and policy proposals as Coca-Cola — downplaying the role of sugar and diet as a cause of obesity, and promoting increased physical activity as the solution, according to the India Resource Center. Members of ILSI India's board of trustees include Coca-Cola India's director of regulatory affairs and representatives from Nestlé and Ajinomoto, a food additive company, along with government officials who serve on scientific panels that are tasked with deciding about food safety issues.
Longstanding Concerns About ILSI
ILSI insists it is not an industry lobby group, but concerns and complaints are longstanding about the group's pro-industry stances and conflicts of interest among the organization's leaders.
In 2010, Nature reported on concerns about conflicts of interest between ILSI and the European Food Safety Authority, and noted that the industry ties may taint the reputation of the European regulatory body.
A 2019 book by Dr. Tim Noakes and Marika Sboros, Real Food on Trial (Columbus Publishing), recounts the "unprecedented prosecution" of Dr. Noakes "in a multimillion rand case that stretched over more than four years. All for a single tweet giving his opinion on nutrition." Russ Greene reported on the controversy in a 2017 article for Keep Fitness Legal. "The Food Industry is attempting to use Dr. Noakes in order to set an example to anyone who dares challenge its authority in nutrition," Greene wrote.
Stacy Malkan is co-director of U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit investigative research group focused on the food industry. She is author of the book, "Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry" (New Society 2007).
Mark Lynas, Cornell Alliance for Science
Cornell Alliance for Science website (November 2017)
This article by Mark Lynas contains several inaccurate and misleading statements. Like many promoting glyphosate products, the claims here focus on trying to discredit the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen in 2015.
CLAIM: IARC is a "little known and rather flaky offshoot of the World Health Organization" that "finds almost everything carcinogenic"
FACT: IARC is the specialized cancer research agency of WHO with expert panels comprised of independent scientists from various disciplines of cancer research. In its 50-year history, IARC has assessed 1,013 substances and found 49 percent of those were "not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans"; 20 percent were classified as known or probably carcinogenic to humans.
CLAIM: "Early drafts of the IARC assessment were extensively altered at a late stage to point towards a carcinogenicity finding — even when the science they were assessing pointed away from this"
FACT: This claim is sourced with a flawed Reuters report by Kate Kelland that left out crucial facts, including the fact that most of the information IARC didn't adopt from "early drafts" was from a review article co-authored by a Monsanto scientist. The review article "did not provide adequate information for independent evaluation of the conclusions reached by the Monsanto scientist and other authors," IARC said. Kelland has written a number of stories critical of IARC; documents released in 2019 establish that Monsanto secretly had a hand in some of her reporting.
Lynas used one other source to buttress his claims about wrongdoing at IARC: David Zaruk, a former chemical industry lobbyist who once worked for the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller.
CLAIM: Glyphosate is the "most benign chemical in world farming."
FACT: This statement is not science-based. Studies link glyphosate to a range of health concerns including cancer, endocrine disruption, liver disease, shortened pregnancies, birth defects and damage to beneficial gut bacteria. Environmental concerns include negative impacts on soil, bees and butterflies.
SOURCE: Mark Lynas is a former journalist turned promotional advocate for agrichemical products. He works for the Cornell Alliance for Science, a PR campaign housed at Cornell University that is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to promote and defend GMOs and pesticides.
American Council on Science and Health
ACSH website (October 2017)
CLAIM: IARC's report on glyphosate was a case of "scientific fraud."
FACT: ACSH based its "fraud" claims on the same two sources Mark Lynas used to try to discredit IARC: the flawed article in Reuters written by a reporter who has cozy ties to Monsanto, and the former chemical industry lobbyist David Zaruk.
SOURCE: The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) is a front group that receives funding from chemical, pharmaceutical and tobacco companies, and pitches its services to industry groups for product defense campaigns, according to leaked internal documents. Emails from 2015 establish that Monsanto was funding ACSH and asked the group to write about the IARC glyphosate report. An ACSH staffer responded that they were already involved in a "full-court press re: IARC" regarding agrichemicals, phthalates and diesel exhaust.
Yvette d’Entremont, a.k.a. the “Sci Babe”
Self Magazine article (October 2018)
CLAIMS: "With over 800 studies on it, no study has shown the components in Roundup to cause cancer" … "there haven't been major credible studies showing a causal link between Roundup and cancer."
FACT: Several major credible studies link Roundup or its key component glyphosate to cancer, including a study submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the 1980s that EPA scientists at the time said was evidence of cancer concerns. There are too many studies to list, but citations can be found in the 2015 International Agency for Research on Cancer Monograph on Glyphosate.
Additionally, a broad scientific analysis of the cancer-causing potential of glyphosate herbicides published in February 2019 found that people with high exposures had an increased risk of developing a type of cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
SOURCE: Yvette d'Entremont is a "contributing editor" to Self Magazine with a column called "SciBabe Explains." Self Magazine does not disclose to its readers that SciBabe partners with companies whose products she defends. In 2017, the artificial sweetener company Splenda partnered with SciBabe to help "empower fans of the SPLENDA® Brand to take an active role in busting myths about sucralose." Chemical companies have sponsored some of her speaking engagements at farming conferences.
Geoffrey Kabat, Epidemiologist
Genetic Literacy Project website (October 2018)
CLAIM: Glyphosate "has been so thoroughly studied for toxicity and the concentrations found in humans are so low that there is no need for further study … there is really nothing left to justify further research!"
FACT: In sworn testimony admitted into evidence in ongoing litigation against Monsanto and its owner Bayer AG, former Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant acknowledged the company never did any epidemiology study of glyphosate-based herbicide formulations the company sells. The company also sought to block a toxicity evaluation of glyphosate formulations by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Moreover, these comments, which Dr. Kabat attributed to an anonymous source, ignore two key facts: independent studies link glyphosate to a wide range of health problems and environmental concerns, and evidence from court filings suggests that Monsanto interfered with scientific and regulatory assessments of glyphosate (see examples and sources here, here, here and here).
According to Judge Vince Chhabria, who presided over a recent federal trial that resulted in $80 million in damages against Monsanto, "the plaintiffs have presented a great deal of evidence that Monsanto has not taken a responsible, objective approach to the safety of its product." The judge also wrote:
Regarding pesticide residues in people, recent science is raising concerns that current regulations do not provide adequate health protections. See reporting by Carey Gillam, Chemicals on our food: When 'safe' may not really be safe, and commentaries by scientists here, here and here.
SOURCE: Dr. Geoffrey Kabat has longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and has published papers favorable to the tobacco industry that were funded by the tobacco industry. He serves on the board of directors of the parent organization of Genetic Literacy Project, which works with Monsanto on PR projects. Kabat is also on the advisory board of the front group American Council on Science and Health.
Patrick Moore, PR Consultant
Video interview with Canal+ (March 2015)
CLAIM: "You can drink a whole quart of [glyphosate] and it won't hurt you."
FACT: Even Monsanto says you should not drink glyphosate. According to the company's website, "glyphosate isn't a beverage and should not be ingested — just like you wouldn't drink shampoo or dish detergent. It is always important to use products for their intended purpose and as directed on the label." (The post also clarifies that Moore "isn't a Monsanto lobbyist or employee.")
SOURCE: Moore has been portrayed as a co-founder of Greenpeace who "calls out his former group" as he argues for deregulation of toxic products or polluting industries. According to Greenpeace, "Once upon a time, Dr. Patrick Moore was an early Greenpeace member. Now he is a public relations consultant for the polluting companies that Greenpeace works to change." In 2014, Moore testified to a U.S. Senate committee that there is no scientific evidence that human activity is causing global warming.
CLAIM: "I've drank [glyphosate] before to demonstrate harmlessness" … "I've done it live and will do it again. Must be mixed w/coke or c-berry juice. Tastes soapy. No buzz"
FACT: While Dr. Folta may indeed have consumed glyphosate, this is bad advice coming from an unreliable source. As described above, even Monsanto says you should not drink glyphosate.
SOURCE: Prof. Folta has misled the public on many occasions about his agrichemial industry ties. In 2017, Dr. Folta sued the New York Times and Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Eric Lipton for reporting on Folta's undisclosed collaborations with Monsanto to help defeat GMO labeling. The lawsuit was dismissed.
Alison van Eenennaam, PhD, Animal Geneticist, UC Davis
video interview on the Real News Network (May 2015)
CLAIM: "I think there's several very comprehensive meta-analyses that have been done recently that show there are no unique toxicological or carcinogenicity effects associated with the use of Roundup. There was the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment that just reviewed hundreds of toxicological studies and nearly a thousand published reports, and concluded that the data showed neither carcinogenic or mutagentic properties of glyphosate, nor that glyphosate is toxic to fertility, reproduction, and or embryonic fetal development in lab animals … And I wouldn't call Germany necessarily a country where you would expect them to be doing a risk assessment that wasn't really looking at what the data's saying."
FACT: A 2019 report commissioned by Members of Parliament in the European Union found that Germany's risk assessment agency "copy-and-pasted tracts from Monsanto studies." See reporting in the Guardian by Arthur Neslen, EU glyphosate approval was based on plagiarised Monsanto text, report finds.
SOURCE: Dr. van Eenennaam is a leading promoter of genetically engineered animals and crops, and a fervent advocate for deregulation. Documents show she has coordinated with agrichemical companies and their public relations firms on PR and messaging.
Food Evolution Documentary Film
This 2017 feature-length documentary promotes genetically engineered foods as the solution to world hunger but glosses over a key controversy at the center of the GMO debate: whether Roundup, the herbicide that most GM crops are engineered to resist, causes cancer. The film does not even mention the IARC report that found glyphosate to be a probable human carcinogen, and it relies on just two sources to claim that glyphosate is not a worry.
CLAIM: The film shows footage of Monsanto's Robb Fraley giving a speech; when an audience member asked him about studies linking glyphosate to cancer or birth defects, Fraley waved his hand dismissively and said all those studies are "pseudoscience."
FACT: Evidence from animal studies and epidemiological data published in reputable journals link glyphosate to several adverse impacts including cancer and birth defects.
CLAIM: A farmer claims that glyphosate has "very, very low toxicity; lower than coffee, lower than salt."
FACT: Comparing the toxicity of short-term exposure of glyphosate to things like coffee or salt is irrelevant and misleading; concerns about links to cancer are based on chronic, long-term exposures to glyphosate.
SOURCE: Food Evolution was produced by Scott Hamilton Kennedy, narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson and funded by the Institute for Food Technologists, an industry trade group. Dozens of academics have called it a propaganda film, and several people interviewed for the film described a sneaky and deceptive filming process. New York University Prof. Marion Nestle asked to be taken out of the film, but the director refused.
Independent Women’s Forum
IWF website (August 2018)
CLAIM: "The truth is, glyphosate is not carcinogenic."
FACT: This article by Julie Gunlock provides no scientific backing for its claims; the only links lead to previous IWF blogs accusing environmental groups of lying and "unnecessarily scaring moms."
SOURCE: The Independent Women's Forum promotes tobacco products, denies climate science and partners with Monsanto on events to defend pesticides. IWF is funded largely by right-wing foundations that promote deregulation for polluting industries.
The International Food Information Council
IFIC website (January 2016)
CLAIM: "IARC's determination [that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen] was found by numerous experts to have excluded dozens of studies that found no evidence of glyphosate being carcinogenic. Experts also found IARC's review to be based on flawed and discredited science, some even going so far as to say the conclusion was 'totally wrong.'"
FACT: IFIC relied on industry sources for these claims, linking to articles by Val Giddings, PhD, former trade group executive turned PR consultant for the agrichemical industry; and Keith Solomon, a toxicologist who was hired by Monsanto to assess the IARC report.
SOURCE: The International Food Information Council, funded by large food and chemical companies, promotes and defends sugar, artificial sweeteners, food additives, pesticides, processed foods and GMOs. A Monsanto PR plan identified IFIC as one of the "industry partners" that could help defend glyphosate from cancer concerns.
This photo posted to the IFIC glyphosate page (then deleted after we called attention to it) is an example of the type of messaging the food industry uses to try to convince women to trust their "experts."