Plastic Pollution
Photo: Manan Vastsyayana
Unprecedented Plastic Pollution
When The Mermaids Cry: The Great Plastic Tide
By Claire Le Guern Lytle
The world population is living, working, vacationing, increasingly conglomerating along the coasts, and standing on the front row of the greatest, most unprecedented, plastic waste tide ever faced.
Washed out on our coasts in obvious and clearly visible form, the plastic debris spectacle blatantly unveiling on our beaches is only the prelude of the greater story that unfolded further away in the the world's oceans, yet mostly originating from where we stand: the land.
In 2008, our global plastic consumption worldwide has been estimated at 260 million tons. Plastic is versatile, lightweight, flexible, moisture resistant, strong, and relatively inexpensive. Those are the attractive qualities that lead us, around the world, to such a voracious appetite and over-consumption of plastic goods. However, durable and very slow to degrade, plastic materials that are used in the production of so many products all, ultimately, become waste with staying power. Our tremendous attraction to plastic, coupled with an undeniable behavioral propensity of increasingly over-consuming, discarding, littering and thus polluting, has become a combination of lethal nature. Read More
Oil Pollution
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Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989
Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989
Boy walks on beach in Cochin, southwest India.
Oil spills on the worlds beaches and in the worlds oceans
By Linda Pilkey-Jarvis
Beaches and river shorelines all over the world are at risk from oil spills. Spills are most likely to occur while oil is transported or transferred between oil tankers, barges, pipelines, refineries, and distribution or storage facilities. Spills may also occur during natural disasters (such as hurricanes), or through deliberate acts by countries at war, sunken ships, vandals, or illegal dumpers. Read More
Trash Pollution
Ocean Pollution... and Ocean Polluters
By Bekah Barlow
Did you know that it's legal to dump trash in the ocean? Yes, there are limitations for what you can and cannot dump. But it is perfectly acceptable to dump your raw sewage, paper, rags, glass, metal, bottles, or similar refuse, as long as you are at least 12 miles away from the nearest shoreline. It is not permissible to dump plastics anywhere. Read More
Surfing in / Pollution
Malaysia Says to Rule Soon on Rare Earths Plant
A government ruling on whether Australian miner Lynas would be given the go-ahead for a controversial rare earths processing plant was expected within days.
Long-term Response Plan for Possible Cuban Oil Spill
US researchers have drafted a plan to best prepare South Florida in case of an eventual oil spill off the coast of Cuba. The proximity of intended Cuban oil drilling and production puts the coastal zone at risk from Florida to the Carolinas and northward.
Accumulating Microplastic Threat to Shores
Microscopic plastic debris from washing clothes is accumulating in the marine environment and could be entering the food chain, a study has warned.
Farming is Key to Meeting Environmental Challenges
Agriculture is part of the solution to the world’s environmental challenge and must play a key role at next June’s Rio summit on sustainable development…
Reuse Plastic Bottles: Tips
Plastic grocery bags and plastic water bottles, those disposable environmental nightmares, have become iconic in the current green revolution. And even those of us who refuse to buy them, somehow seem to find ourselves in possession of these landfill disasters.
China’s Coastal and Marine Biodiversity Under Threat
As China welcomes the year of the dragon, with more influence than ever on the world’s climate and resources, a look at the environmental stories that made the news over the past 12 months. Amongst several environmental concerns and although efforts have been made in the past few years, China’s coastal biodiversity is under threat from intensive coastal exploration and land-based pollution.
Cruise Ship Threatens Marine Paradise
The risk of environmental damage to the Tuscan Archipelago National Park seas’ has not yet receded, as half-million gallons (2,400 tons) of black goo are still trapped within the capsized Costa Concordia luxury liner, in danger of leaking out and polluting some of the Mediterranean’s most unspoiled sea.
Ghana’s Booming Offshore Oil Industry and Environmental Concerns
Environmental concerns are raised as more oil companies begin drilling off the coast of Ghana. Does the country have the resources to cope with a major spill?
Huge oil rig arrives to explore in Cuban waters
A massive drilling rig arrived Thursday in the warm Gulf waters north of Havana, where it will sink an exploratory well deep into the seabed.
