How the recycling symbol lost its meaning – Grist Magazine
Of the 147 companies with a package recyclability goal, only 15 percent were on track to meet it…
Seabird poop is recipe for coral recovery amid climate-driven bleaching – Mongabay
Researchers have found that nutrients from seabird poop led to a doubling of coral growth rates and faster recovery after bleaching events, promoting overall resilience…
Looting of the sea: the great sand theft – ABC
It is the most demanded raw material after water. It is used to make concrete, chips, detergents, paints… and even artificial islands. The big cities are hungry for sand and to satisfy it, the world’s beaches are being plundered….
The Plastics We Breathe | Interactive – the Washington Post
Every time you take a breath, you could be inhaling microplastics. Scroll to see how tiny and dangerously invasive they can be….
Can the circular economy help the Caribbean win its war against waste? – Mongabay
For decades, a graveyard of corroding barrels has littered the seafloor just off the coast of Los Angeles. It was out of sight, out of mind — a not-so-secret secret that haunted the marine environment until a team of researchers came across them with an advanced underwater camera…Startling amounts of DDT near the barrels pointed to a little-known history of toxic pollution…but federal regulators recently determined that the manufacturer had not bothered with barrels. (Its acid waste was poured straight into the ocean instead.)…
Giant Heaps of Plastic Are Helping Vegetables Grow – Atlantic Magazine
Plastic allows farmers to use less water and fertilizer. But at the end of each season, they’re left with a pile of waste…
Microplastics are in human testicles. It’s still not clear how they got there – Grist Magazine
People eat, drink, and breathe in tiny pieces of plastics — but what they do inside the body is still unknown…
U.S. East Coast adopts ‘living shorelines’ approach to keep rising seas at bay – Mongabay
Excerpt: Along the U.S. East Coast, communities are grappling with the dual destructive forces of rising sea levels and stronger storms pushed by climate change, resulting in effects ranging from ‘ghost forests’ of saltwater-killed coastal trees in the Carolinas, to inundations of New York City’s subway system. While the usual response has been to build […]
‘I swam in the polluted Channel and now I need hearing aids’ – the Times UK
Maggie Alderson blames poor water quality off Hastings for an infection that punctured her ear drum. Samples taken from the sea would appear to back that up…