Save the Ocean Life and Save Earth

Is Your Recycling is Getting Recycled? By    Livia Albeck-Ripka May 29, 2018 Plastics and papers from dozens of American cities and towns are being dumped in landfills after China stopped recycling most “foreign garbage.”                         Bales of recyclable waste in Seattle. American waste managers are struggling to find plants to process their recyclables. Credit                        Wiqan Ang for The New York Times Oregon is serious about recycling. Its residents are accustomed to dutifully separating milk cartons, yogurt containers, cereal boxes and kombucha bottles from their trash to divert them from the landfill. But this year, because of a far-reaching rule change in China, some of the recyclables are ending up in the local dump anyway. In recent months, in fact, thousands of tons of material left curbside for recycling in doz...

Whale Died After Eating 80 Plastic Bags 2 June 2018                        AFP/ THAIWHALES     Helpers tried to stabilise the whale but it died on Friday afternoon A pilot whale has died off southern Thailand after swallowing 80 plastic bags, Thai marine officials say. The whale vomited five bags during a vain attempt by conservation officials to save it in a canal in Songkhla province. The bags, weighing about 8kg (17lbs), had made it impossible for the whale to eat food, a marine expert said. A recent report warned the amount of plastic in the ocean could triple in a decade  unless litter was curbed. Thailand is a major user of plastic bags and its government last month announced it was considering a levy on them. They are believed to kill hundreds of marine animals there each year. The small male pilot whale had been discovered ailing and unable to swim in the Na Thap Canal last Monday.   ...

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...

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...