Tag: Plastic Pollution

In Graphic Detail: By-caught Birds

9/19/2024 - By Rebecca Heisman. New research estimates that some 200,000 birds are accidentally caught in fishing gear in Europe each year. When commercial fishers haul up their nets, they often find dolphins, sharks, sea turtles, and other creatures entangled amid their catches. These accidentally caught, nontarget species are known as by-catch,… SEE MORE

Seagrass and Plastic Are Not Friends

8/28/2024 - By Sean Mowbray. The year 2021’s hopeful optimism is 2024’s unfortunate reality. In 2021, what sounded like a good news story hit the media: in the Mediterranean, seagrasses were trapping plastic waste, capturing fragments in their leaves and locking microplastics in seafloor sediments. The news cycle was spurred by a study… SEE MORE

https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/images/plastics-ocean-infographic

Plastics in the Ocean: How They Get There, Their Impacts, and Our Solutions

2/28/2024 - By blog.marinedebris.noaa.gov. Marine debris is a pervasive problem facing our ocean and Great Lakes. Of all the trash that ends up in these important water bodies, plastics are the most common. This week, we’re exploring the problem of plastics in our ocean and the solutions that are making a difference. Globally, we… SEE MORE

Plastic Bottles, Not Bags, Cause the Worst Pollution to Europe's Waterways

Sponging Up Plastic Pollution

10/21/2023 - By Chris Baraniuk. Sponges. Is there anything they can’t do? For millennia, humans have used dried natural sponges to clean up, to paint, and as vessels to consume fluids like water or honey; we’ve even used them as contraceptive devices. Whether synthetic or natural, sponges are great at ensnaring tiny particles in… SEE MORE

A piece of plastic debris that’s been colonized by both costal barnacles (pink and striped) and a gooseneck barnacle from the open ocean. (Linsey Haram/SERC Marine Invasions Lab)

This floating ocean garbage is home to a surprising amount of life from the coasts

5/15/2023 - By Nell Greenfieldboyce. Scientists studying a giant collection of plastic trash floating in the middle of the open ocean have found some unexpected inhabitants: dozens of marine species that usually stick close to the coast. Among the plastic debris, the researchers found all kinds of nonnative species, from anemones to… SEE MORE

https://apnews.com/article/science-health-business-environment-recycling-e40323953e5adffb32f73b60c9bb2202

Plastic Pollution in Oceans on Track to Rise for Decades

2/9/2022 - (AP) — Plastic pollution at sea is reaching worrying levels and will continue to grow even if significant action is taken now to stop such waste from reaching the world’s oceans, according to a review of hundreds of academic studies. The review by Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute, commissioned by environmental… SEE MORE