Plastic Pollution

Two new studies by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) are shedding new light on plastic waste in the Antarctic. Based on 30 years of extensive surveys of marine debris ingested by sea birds or washed up on Bird Island at South Georgia and Signy Island in the South Orkneys, researchers…

Food wrapping, fishing gear and plastic waste continue to reach the Antarctic. Two new studies into how plastic debris is reaching sub-Antarctic islands are published this month (April 2020) in the journal Environment International. New findings include analyses of some of the longest continuous datasets in the world on plastics…

Plastic debris has been collected at Bird Island and Signy Island for the last three decades. Credit: British Antarctic Survey Food wrapping, fishing gear and plastic waste continue to reach the Antarctic. Two new studies into how plastic debris is reaching sub-Antarctic islands are published in the journal Environment International.…

Food wrapping, fishing gear and plastic waste continue to reach the Antarctic. Two new studies into how plastic debris is reaching sub-Antarctic islands are published this month (April 2020) in the journal Environment International. New findings include analyses of some of the longest continuous datasets in the world on plastics…

Weather satellite for observing powerful thunderstorms of storms and tornadoes in space orbiting the ... earth. Elements of this image furnished by NASA. Getty While we know plastic is terrible for marine life, detecting plastic pollution in the ocean is notoriously challenging. Plastics come in many colors, break down to…

Feature Events 5 things to know about the ocean plastic problem, and how to fix it Events Key takeaways from a recent virtual event on the issue of ocean plastic pollution, in support of 1% for The Planet and co-hosted by Springwise. During a recent digital discussion on the issue…

The world is drowning in plastic. About 60% of the more than 8,700 million metric tonnes of plastic ever made is no longer in use, instead sat mostly in landfill or released to the environment. That equals over 400kg of plastic waste for every one of the 7.6 billion people…

In Tumbes, a village in southern Chile, discarded plastic fishing nets are crammed into gaps between parked cars and market stalls, evidence of a global waste problem that the town is working to resolve.Until recently, most discarded fishing nets in this coastal fishing village were dumped straight into the sea…

An AI system has spotted plastic pollution in the sea by analyzing images from satellites orbiting the earth. The scientists behind the technique claim that it’s the first time patches of plastics in coastal waters have been detected via satellites. The system studies images collected by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites to spot debris floating in the…

Understanding the extent of our plastic pollution problem is incredibly difficult, largely because the corrosive forces of the ocean break the waste into tiny fragments which are nearly impossible to track. Scientists have again found evidence of these microplastics in the most remote of places, discovering particles lodged in cores…