Bill Dennison, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science y Robert J. Orth, Virginia Institute of Marine Science
An ambitious plan to cut the flow of nutrients into the Chesapeake Bay has produced historic regrowth of underwater seagrasses. These results offer hope for other polluted water bodies.
Millions of tonnes of plastic garbage winds up in our oceans each year. Voluntary pledges haven’t worked. It’s time for Canada to advocate for an international plastics treaty.
Coral reefs in the Asia-Pacific have been deluged with an estimated 11.1 billion pieces of plastic waste, increasing the risk of coral disease more than 20-fold.
Tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean each year, but a switch away from petroleum-based products to bio-derived and degradable composites could lessen marine pollution.
The updated plan for improving water quality on the Great Barrier Reef still doesn’t address the need to curb intensively farmed crops such as sugar cane, and to enforce existing environmental laws.
After making worldwide headlines with the story of the Pacific “garbage island”, researchers were sent a photo of the same beach, white sand free of litter, as recently as 1992.
Plastics pose a major threat to seabirds and other animals, and most don’t ever break down - they just break up. Every piece of petrochemical-derived plastic ever made still exists on the planet.
The merchant navy – some 20,000 ships – carries the vast majority of trade goods around the world. Unfortunately, they also spew toxic pollutants that harm people and the environment.
Marine plastic pollution is a global problem. Bali’s beaches present prime examples and an opportunity to study the socio-economic effects this has on coastal communities.
We tend to think of the oceans as quiet, when in fact they’re anything but. Noise is the “forgotten pollutant”, but the good news is that unlike many other pollutants it can be switched off if we try.
Dave West from the environmental group Boomerang Alliance told Fairfax that if you’ve got an average seafood diet in Australia, you’re probably ingesting about 11,000 plastic pieces a year. Is that right?
The coast alongside the Great Barrier Reef is home to ports, farms, holiday resorts, and more than a million people. It all puts pressure on the Reef, and it’s time for some firms plans to manage it.
Successive plans to curb the sediments, nutrients and pesticides flowing into the waters around the Great Barrier Reef have fallen short, leaving the corals that call the reef home highly vulnerable.
Urban sprawl has spread to the sea, as more and more man-made structures are being built along the world’s coastlines. Just as we do on land, we need to think about how to build sustainably at sea.