Save the Ocean Life and Save Earth

Striving To Reduce Ocean Pollution, EU Proposes Ban Of Everyday Plastic Items WORLD NEWS    05/29/2018 07:21 am  ET Straws, plates, cutlery and cotton buds are among the plastic products prohibited under the proposed new rules.    By Dominique Mosbergen GETTY IMAGES.  The European Union has proposed a ban of several types of single-use plastics, including straws, disposable cutlery and plates. Alarmed by the sheer quantity of plastic clogging our oceans , the European Union is mulling ambitious new rules that would reduce or outrightly prohibit many everyday  single-use plastic items . The proposed measures , unveiled Monday by the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, target the top 10 plastic products most often found on Europe’s beaches. Some of these items — like plastic straws, cotton buds, plates and disposable cutlery — will be banned completely under the new rules, which require the approval of the European Parliament ...

How Plastic Pollution is Affecting the Ocean Wildlife By   Kerry Taylor-Smith, B.Sc. (Hons)   May 16  2018 Image Credit:Shutterstock/ RichCarey Introduction A huge whale with a plastic bucket stuck in its mouth, new-born dolphin calves being exposed to pollutants through their mother’s contaminated milk, and seabirds unsuspectingly feeding their chicks piece of plastic - these scenes from the  BBC Blue Planet II documentary series were heart-breaking, and just a snapshot o f the problems plastic pollution is causing in the oceans. Effects of Plastic on Marine Life Fish, marine mammals and seabirds are being injured and killed by plastic pollution, and its it believed that 700 species could go extinct because of it. Current estimates suggest that at least 267 species worldwide have been affected, including 84% of sea turtle species, 44% of all seabird species and 43% of all marine mammal species – but there are probably many more. Deaths are chiefly caused by...

How India's Fishermen Turn Ocean Plastic Into Roads In an innovative project, fishermen in Kerala collect ocean plastic for recycling, cleaning the ocean in the process. A fisherman in Kerala, India, repairs nets on a beach. Plastic pollution can damage and clog nets, but now fishermen are fighting back. PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANK BIENEWALD, GETTY IMAGES By  Maanvi Singh PUBLISHED  MAY 23, 2018 KOLLAM, INDIA-- Kadalamma —Mother Sea—that’s what Xavier Peter calls the Arabian Sea. His own mother gave him life, but Kadalamma gave him purpose, a livelihood. She has provided for him, offering up enough fish to feed his family and sell at the market. And she has protected him, sparing him thrice from cyclones and once from a tsunami. Xavier has been trawling for shrimp and fish off India’s southwestern coast for more than three decades, his whole adult life. But lately, when he casts out his nets, he often comes up with more  plastic  than fish. “Pulling the nets out o...

Ocean Pollution Each year, billions of pounds of trash and other pollutants enter the ocean. Where does this pollution come from? Where does it go? Some of the debris ends up on our beaches, washed in with the waves and tides, some sinks, some is eaten by marine animals that mistake it for food, and some accumulates in  ocean gyres . Other forms of pollution that impact the health of the ocean come from a single, known sources, such as  oil spills , or from accumulation of many dispersed sources, such as fertilizer from our yards. The majority of pollutants going into the ocean come from activities on land. Natural processes and human activities along the coastlines and far inland affect the health of our ocean. One of the biggest sources is called  nonpoint source pollution , which occurs as a result of runoff. Nonpoint source pollution includes many small sources, like septic tanks, cars, trucks, and boats, plus larger sources, su...

Man Plans to Swim the Pacific Ocean to Raise Awareness for Plastic Pollution by  Lacy Cooke You’ve heard a lot about the  ocean plastic  crisis, and may even know a fair amount about the  Great Pacific Garbage Patch . But for many of us, the issue can still seem far away when we drink out of a plastic bottle or tote groceries in a plastic bag. Professional distance swimmer  Ben Lecomte  aims to offer a fresh, personal perspective on  ocean health  as he swims 5,500 miles across the  Pacific Ocean . Inhabitat caught up with Lecomte just days before he plans to leave for the potentially record-setting trek. Lecomte could be the first man to swim across the Pacific Ocean, but that’s not his goal for this venture. “My goal is to do something a little bit out there, a little bit extreme, to get the attention on an issue very important to everybody: the state of the  ocean ,” he told Inhabitat. He’ll leave from Tokyo and swim to Sa...

Plastic Bag-Swallowing Sperm Whales – Victims of Our Remorseless Progress Philip Hoare   @philipwhale   Wed 23 May 2018 15.34 BST The news that Mediterranean whales have died after ingesting our plastic waste comes as no surprise – but seems to be an omen for fallout from our disruption of the natural world .                                A sperm whale plays with plastic waste in the Atlantic. Photograph: Ullstein Bild/ullstein bild via Getty Image Plastic bags have been  blamed for the deaths of sperm whales in the Mediterranean . The Athens-based Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute found that more than a third of the sperm whales found dead in Greek waters had stomachs blocked by plastic waste. But this comes as no surprise to whale watchers. In a plangent 2011 report by same researchers on a mass sperm-whale stranding, a combination of factors – noise from naval exerc...

Recycling is suffering from system failure; it's time for a system redesign Lloyd Alter   lloydalter May 15, 2018                          © Justin Sullivan/Getty Images We are sacrificing our oceans and filling our landfills in the name of convenience. It's time to pay the bill. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The U.S. recycling industry is breaking down.”  Bob Tita writes: "Prices for scrap paper and plastic have collapsed, leading local officials across the country to charge residents more to collect recyclables and send some to landfills. Used newspapers, cardboard boxes and plastic bottles are piling up at plants that can’t make a profit processing them for export or domestic markets." It all worked for a while as much of the recycling was shipped to China, where cheap labor made it possible to separate the pizza-covered boxes from the clean cardboard, but the government won’t let them d...