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
Up to 20 million tons of debris from Japan’s tsunami moving toward Hawaii
Up to 20 million tons of debris from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March, is traveling faster than expected and could reach the U.S. West Coast in three years. The marine debris were recently spotted by a Russian ship’s crew.
NZ, Almost 500 Tonnes Of Oil Pumped From Rena Cargo Ship
481 tonnes of oil has been pumped from the stricken ship Rena, which originally held 772 tonnes of oil, as the salvage operation accelerates. 10 tonnes of fuel oil escaped the beleaguered ship on Saturday night and yesterday morning, and was being swept north by the tide, towards Mayor Island, a wildlife refuge and marine reserve.
Accumulation of Microplastic on Shorelines Woldwide: Sources and Sinks
Scientists are reporting that household washing machines seem to be a major source of so-called “microplastic” pollution, bits of polyester and acrylic smaller than the head of a pin, that they now have detected on the shorelines at 18 sites worldwide representing six continents from the poles to the equator, with more material in densely populated areas.
Radiation Risk at Scots Beach Worse Than Thought, Says Report
Highly radioactive material have been found on the popular Dalgety Bay beach, Scotland, giving great “cause for concern”, especially for children, exposed to radioactive pollution from the beach, a study by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) just revealed.
The Teaspoon And The Bucket
Now the Rena Cargo ship is set to join the wildlife fatalities her grounding has caused. But if she breaks and the remainder of that oil is released we will see four times the volume of oil already spilled. It must be remembered that what we can get to and remove, is only a part of what permeates the environment…
Company pledges money for New Zealand oil cleanup
The company that was chartering a cargo ship at the time it ran aground on a New Zealand reef and began spilling tons of oil offered 1 million New Zealand dollars ($800,000) Tuesday to help with the cleanup.
Bioplastics : A Viable Future ?
As millions of tons of petroleum-based plastic are consumed every year worldwide causing immense amounts of waste ultimately polluting beaches and oceans, bioplastic – biodegradable and not dependent on fossil resources- emerges as a viable replacement to petroleum-based plastics.
Gulf algae bloom affects much of Texas Gulf Coast
Historic drought conditions are fueling the largest algae bloom in more than a decade along the Texas Gulf Coast, killing fish, sparking warnings about beach conditions and making throats scratchy, researchers said.
New CNOOC oil leak found in China’s Bohai Bay
The latest in a series of offshore spills in the Bohai Bay that have raised an outcry among fishermen and environmentalists…
