Dear Deeply Readers,
Welcome to the archives of Oceans Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on September 1, 2018, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on ocean health and economy. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors and contributors.
We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].
Exploring the pollution crisis threatening marine life as well as new technologies to clean up the oceans and reduce the use of plastics.
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Mark J. Spalding President, The Ocean Foundation
Plastic production is expected to quadruple by 2050. Mark J. Spalding, president of The Ocean Foundation, explains how fully understanding the scope of the pollution problem convinced him that current efforts are not sufficient.
Residents of Skibbereen fear the industrial facility would foul their air and water while adding to ocean plastic pollution. The plant is part of a global plastic factory-building boom driven by cheap natural gas.
A growing wave of multinational corporations is pledging to stop handing out single-use plastic straws. Listen to Lonely Whale’s Dune Ives discuss the global momentum against disposable plastic and efforts to create a new ocean-friendly plastic supply chain.
Timothy Haab, a professor at Ohio State University, explains how and why putting a price tag on a beach’s value encourages policymakers to value natural capital.
When glossing over who marine plastic pollution really will affect by averaging risk, we may ignore harms to vulnerable populations, says Max Liboiron, a researcher who runs the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research in Canada.
Paul Harvey Environmental Science Researcher, Australia’s Macquarie University
As governments around the world rightly consider bans of various kinds of disposable plastics, nuance is needed to protect crucial applications, such as in research, food aid and medicine, argues environmental science researcher Paul Harvey of Macquarie University.
Utila, a Honduran island in the Caribbean Sea, is transforming the plastic trash that washes up on its beaches into material used to build roads, an increasingly popular use for marine pollution.
Thousands of people are expected to attend the March for the Ocean in Washington, D.C., this Saturday to draw attention to offshore drilling, plastic pollution and other issues in advance of the November election.
Put your tray tables and seat backs in an upright position and prepare to go plastic-free. Alaska Airlines becomes the first U.S. carrier to replace plastic stir straws on its flights with sustainable alternatives, as the campaign against single-use plastic grows.
Watamu is a popular tourist town that has had to organize a collective effort to keep its beaches and ocean clean. However, there are limits to what it can do about a global problem.
Plastics entering coastal waters both absorb and release cadmium, lead and other toxic metals. Scientists are now trying to determine the impact of metal-contaminated plastic on marine life and ocean ecosystems.
The European Space Agency is developing technology to allow satellites to identify the concentration, movement and origin of plastic debris across the world’s oceans.
Last year, Maui and the Big Island banned polystyrene food containers that contribute to the islands’ coastal pollution problem. Now, Hawaii’s legislature is taking action toward the U.S.’ first statewide prohibition on foam packaging, which is toxic to marine life.
Scientists testing North Atlantic mesopelagic fish eaten by the ocean’s top predators found that nearly 75 percent were contaminated with microplastic fibers. Researchers have also discovered microplastics in the scat of gray seals and in the Atlantic mackerel they eat.
Consumer products giant P&G is tackling marine pollution by creating bottles made from beach plastic and developing new technologies to reduce waste. P&G’s Virginie Helias talks about the importance of collaboration to solve the ocean plastic crisis.
Charles Moore, who first sailed the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 1997, has returned five times over 15 years to document the concentrations of plastic in the ocean. His results show microplastics are accumulating at a rapid rate.
A decade of research has found that the muscles and eggs of birds in the far-flung Aleutian Islands contain endocrine-disrupting phthalates from plastics the animals have ingested, prompting Alaskan tribes to begin testing native foods for contamination.
Researchers tracked hundreds of buoys deployed in the Gulf of Mexico. Not only did the buoys not spread out – many concentrated into an area the size of a football stadium. The findings may help scientists pinpoint areas for plastic or oil-spill cleanup.
Scientists surveyed nearly 125,000 coral reefs in the Asia-Pacific region, finding that 11.1 billion pieces of plastic debris are entangled in corals and are drastically increasing the likelihood that they will contract deadly diseases.
Malcolm David Hudson Academic, University of Southampton
The global community has solved significant environment problems, such as the ozone hole, but has fallen far short on others. When it come to plastic pollution, environmental researcher Malcolm David Hudson asks, which way will the world go?
The ocean may cover more than 70 percent of the planet, but it doesn’t get covered nearly enough in the news. Oceans Deeply launched in June to help fill that gap. Catch up on our coverage during a busy year for ocean health.
A growing number of companies are intercepting plastic before it enters the ocean and harms marine life, turning trash into everything from sunglasses and surfboard fins to swimwear and skateboards.
The Mediterranean and Baltic Seas harbor some of the highest levels of plastic pollution in the world. A new EU-financed collaboration between universities and companies will develop technologies for wastewater treatment plants and waterways that can stop the flow.
The NextWave consortium, which includes Dell, General Motors and other corporations, aims to industrialize the use of ocean-bound plastic in manufacturing by collecting it before it reaches the sea.
The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Save Our Seas Act to reauthorize a marine debris program and work with other nations to reduce ocean pollution. Backers hope the House will approve the legislation in 2018.
Oceans Deeply talks with experts about how the city of Seattle pioneered a ban on plastic straws, a campaign to make other cities ‘strawless’ and how straws are a gateway to changing people’s use of disposable plastics, responsible for a marine pollution crisis.
The Emerald City is eliminating millions of plastic straws thanks to a collaboration between activists, business and the maker of a marine-safe alternative to a ubiquitous product. Now the campaign is moving to other major cities.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy design challenge has awarded $1 million to six innovators who are taking the plastic out of packaging and redesigning the ways people consume common products.
For the first time scientists have shown that the smallest bits of marine plastic pollution – called nanoplastic – can move up the aquatic food chain and be absorbed by predators’ brains, affecting their ability to hunt.
The 5 Gyres Institute’s pilot program takes high school students on ocean expeditions to show them how to collect and analyze plastic trash – with the goal of inspiring careers as scientists, policymakers and advocates.
Trash skimmers are being deployed in harbors to collect growing amounts of garbage, but some scientists say resources would be better spent stopping the source of pollution.
Plastic debris can be harmful to marine fish, and to the people who eat them. But why do fish eat so much plastic? New research suggests that our plastic may smell a lot like their food.
Oceans Deeply talks with experts about the plastic pollution that’s threatening the ocean: What we know, what we don’t know and, crucially, what we can do about it.
An FAO study finds that more than 100 commercial seafood species ingest microplastic, which can be contaminated with toxins. More worrying are the unknown health effects of even smaller nanoplastics.
Scientists have found four times as much potentially toxic microplastic on the seabed as on the surface of the ocean – and it’s being consumed by tiny creatures essential to the marine ecosystem.
A movement to transform marine plastic pollution into athletic shoes, skateboards and other products is gaining traction, but there is a debate about how much impact ‘upcycling’ can have.
Beach cleanup programs are generating a wave of information on plastics and other marine pollution, presenting policymakers with the challenge of turning that data into action.
Abandoned fishing gear kills millions of marine animals every year. The Fishing for Energy program generates electricity from gear that’s been retrieved from the ocean.
Photos taken two decades apart of Henderson Island, one of the world’s most isolated atolls, reveal the reach of the ocean plastic pollution crisis and the need to change our behavior.
A groundbreaking study reveals that plastic production has grown exponentially since 1950 and will continue to accumulate in the ocean at an ever-increasing rate unless a strategy is established to curb the crisis.
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