NEWS / BLOGS
Hawaii bans sunscreens deemed harmful to coral reefs
Hawaii has become the first US state to ban sunscreens deemed harmful to coral reefs.
Looking forward to a day exploring coral reefs in Hawaii? Make sure you're wearing the right, non-banned sunscreen.
Hawaii has become the first US state to ban sunscreens deemed harmful to coral reefs. Effective from Jan. 1, 2021, the bill was signed by state governor David Ige on Tuesday.
The legislature focuses on the environmental impacts of two chemicals found in some sunscreens, oxybenzone and octinoxate, and their effect on Hawaii's marine ecosystems — including coral reefs. The bill will prohibit the sale and distribution of sunscreen containing these chemicals without a prescription.
See full article at source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/hawaii-bans-sunscreens-deemed-harmful-054453351.html
By 2050 There Will Be More Pounds Of Plastic In Oceans Than Fish
By the year 2050 there will be more pounds of plastic in the ocean than there will be fish. But since we don’t live in the ocean why should we care? It’s actually pretty simple – the fish we eat comes from the ocean, and that fish is filled with plastic and many marine animals are dying from starvation because they are ingesting all that plastic. Even the microplastic is making its way up the food chain with dire consequences. But what’s more, we can’t even begin to clean it all up until we stop letting it get there to begin with. The oceans are too deep to dredge and microplastic is too small to get it all. Where do we even begin?
See full article at source: https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/04/ocean-garbage-plastic-2050/
New competition launched to tackle ocean plastics by reducing lost fishing gear
April 30, 2018
Circular Ocean has launched an innovation competition, designed to engage creative and technical communities to provide new ideas and solutions related to the re-use and recycling of end-of-life fishing nets in the Northern Periphery and Arctic (NPA) region.
Circular Ocean, a three-year European project that seeks opportunities to recover and reuse of waste commercial fishing gear with a view to benefiting local economies, is inviting competition entries from individuals as well as multi-disciplinary teams of entrepreneurs, inventors, designers and students who would like to tackle marine plastics with ideas, solutions and product concepts.
See Full Article at Source here: https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/environment-sustainability/new-competition-launched-to-tackle-ocean-plastics-by-reducing-lost-fishing-gear
Plastic-eating enzyme could aid recycling
Tom Ravenscroft, 20 April 2018
Scientists have discovered an enzyme that can "digest" plastic and revolutionalise recycling, but environmentalists warn the "miracle" breakthrough should not make designers complacent about the need to reduce use of the material.
Image is by University of Portsmouth.
Scientists at the University of Portsmouth and from the US Department of Energy "inadvertently engineered" the enzyme that rapidly breaks down polyethylene terephthalate (PET) – the rigid plastic commonly used to make drinks bottles.
The teams were investigating the structure of a naturally occurring bacteria that breaks down PET, when they accidentally engineered the new more efficient enzyme.
See full article at source here: https://www.dezeen.com/2018/04/20/plastic-eating-enzyme-petase-recycling-news/
Why the death of coral reefs could be devastating for millions of humans
Coral reefs around the globe already are facing unprecedented damage because of warmer and more acidic oceans. It’s hardly a problem affecting just the marine life that depends on them or deep-sea divers who visit them.
A diver checks the bleached coral at Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Large parts of the reef could be dead within 20 years as climate change drives mass coral bleaching, scientists have warned. (The Ocean Agency/XL Catlin Seaview Survey/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)
If carbon dioxide emissions continue to fuel the planet’s rising temperature, the widespread loss of coral reefs by 2050 could have devastating consequences for tens of millions of people, according to new research published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS.
To better understand where those losses would hit hardest, an international group of researchers mapped places where people most need reefs for their livelihoods, particularly for fishing and tourism, as well as for shoreline protection. The researchers combined those maps with others showing where coral reefs are most under stress from warming seas and ocean acidification.
Countries in Southeast Asia such as Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines would bear the brunt of the damage, the scientists found. So would coastal communities in western Mexico and parts of Australia, Japan and Saudi Arabia. The problem would affect countries as massive as China and as small as the tiny island nation of Nauru in the South Pacific.
Read the full article at source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/11/09/why-the-death-of-coral-reefs-could-be-devastating-for-millions-of-humans/?utm_term=.8c03d476e0e8
You've got bottle: 7 brands who turn plastic waste into posh fashion
Eight million metric tonnes of plastic is dumped into the ocean each year. If we’re not careful by 2050 there will be more bits of plastic than fish. Forward thinking fashion brands are turning the waves of wasted plastic bottles into clothing, shoes and bags.
See full article and 7 awesome brands here: https://pebblemag.com/magazine/living/7-brands-who-turn-plastic-bottles-into-posh-fashion
The company turning 4 billion plastic bottles into clothes
Some 400,000 college students will accept diplomas this year while wearing gowns made entirely of plastic bottles.
It's not a joke or a gimmick. It's a statement on how to keep trash out of landfills, said Jay Hertwig, VP of global branding for textile maker Unifi.
Unifi, based in Greensboro, North Carolina, produces 300 million pounds of polyester and nylon yarn annually.
"As a manufacturer, we asked ourselves what we could do to be more innovative and a socially responsible company," said Hertwig.
Repreve was the answer. It's the firm's flagship fiber brand made from recycled materials.
See original source here: http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/16/technology/plastic-bottles-fabric-repreve/index.html
A sperm whale that washed up on a beach in Spain had 64 pounds of plastic and waste in its stomach
El Valle Wildlife Center found 64 lbs of plastic waste on a young sperm whale.
When a young sperm whale washed up on a beach in southern Spain, scientists wanted to know what killed it. They now know: waste -- 64 pounds of it. Most of it plastic, but also ropes, pieces of net and other debris lodged in its stomach.
The discovery has prompted authorities in Murcia, Spain, to launch a campaign to clean up its beaches.
"The presence of plastic in the ocean and oceans is one of the greatest threats to the conservation of wildlife throughout the world, as many animals are trapped in the trash or ingest large quantities of plastics that end up causing their death," Murcia's general director of environment, Consuelo Rosauro said in a statement.
Read the full article at source: www.cnn.com/2018/04/11/health/sperm-whale-plastic-waste-trnd/index.html
Climate Change Indicators: Oceans
Covering about 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, the world’s oceans have a two-way relationship with weather and climate. The oceans influence the weather on local to global scales, while changes in climate can fundamentally alter many properties of the oceans. This chapter examines how some of these important characteristics of the oceans have changed over time.
Read the full article at source: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/oceans
Most Ocean Plastic Pollution Carried by 10 Rivers
LONDON —
The equivalent of one garbage truck full of plastic waste is dumped into the world’s oceans every minute, equal to 8 million tons a year. New research suggests that 90 percent of that waste gets into the oceans through 10 major river systems.
“It seems that larger rivers preferentially transport plastic and these are rivers with a large population. You could reduce river plastic loads tremendously by focusing on these 10 rivers,” lead researcher Christian Schmidt of Germany’s Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research, told VOA.
Two of the rivers are in Africa - the Nile and the Niger – while the remaining eight are in Asia – the Ganges, Indus, Yellow, Yangtze, Haihe, Pearl, Mekong and Amur.
Read entire article at source: https://www.voanews.com/a/ninety-percent-of-ocean-plastic-pollution-carried-by-10-rivers-/4134909.html
Popularity of plastic takes toll on oceans, puts human health at risk
November 27, 2017 – Our love affair with plastic—from water bottles, shopping bags, and drinking straws, to consumer product packaging—is taking a toll on the world’s oceans, and damaging the health of people, marine birds, and animals. The filmmakers and scientists behind a new documentary exploring this problem recently joined Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health community members for a film screening and panel discussion. Experts offered solutions for policymakers, as well as steps ordinary citizens can take to reduce plastic pollution.
Read full article at source: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/plastic-pollution-harms-oceans-health/
Washing fleeces damages oceans more than plastic bottles
Dame Ellen MacArthur and Stella McCartney launched a report that said the equivalent of one dustcart of textiles is wasted every second
Washing fleeces and other synthetic clothes is much more damaging for the ocean than microbeads in cosmetics, a report has found.
The government has pledged to ban microbeads, but clothes produce 16 times as many damaging tiny plastic fibres that end up in the sea.
Read full article at source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/washing-fleeces-damages-oceans-more-than-plastic-bottles-fv6v3rmqn
Overfishing is as big a threat to humanity as it is to our oceans
There has never been a more urgent time for seafood businesses and fishing nations to make a commitment to sustainability. The world’s oceans are in trouble, with marine life plummeting and the people who are dependent on the sea for income and food left increasingly vulnerable. Data shows populations of fish and other marine vertebrates, including marine mammals, reptiles and birds have halved since 1970.
Fourteen years ago when I was based with WWF in the Pacific – where most of Australia’s tuna is sourced – I saw first hand the stress that was being placed on the ocean ecosystems. Valuable fish stocks were declining as foreign fishing nations began eyeing the western and central Pacific’s tuna stocks as their next goldmine.
Read entire article at the Source: http://blog.msc.org/blog/2016/02/17/overfishing-is-as-big-a-threat-to-humanity-as-it-is-to-our-oceans/
The Importance of Remotely Operated Vehicles in Offshore Mining
When most people think of mining they imagine terrestrial mining operations consisting of earth moving machines designed to dig down to bedrock to extract gold, coal, or diamonds. Offshore mining, also called Deep Sea Mining, is a rather new method of extracting precious materials from the ocean floor.
Read full article at the source: https://www.aquabotix.com/news/the-importance-of-remotely-operated-vehicles-in-offshore-mining
Underwater noise
Underwater noise - a man-made problem
Whales and seals depend on their sense of hearing for survival. Man-made underwater sounds can impair their hearing in both the short and long term, displace them from vital habitats, cause a change in important patterns of behaviour and thereby deteriorate the survival capacity of these marine mammals.
Most whales and seals, many fish and even some invertebrates such as squid rely on acoustic signals for a great number of basic activities, including communication, mate selection, location of prey, protection against predators, or navigation. A change in ambient noise can have a negative impact on the biological fitness of individual animals or even entire populations.
Read full article at the source: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/underwater-noise#textpart-1
What is a marine protected area?
Marine protected areas conserve, manage, and protect.
The majority of marine protected areas in the United States are multiple-use sites, meaning fishing, boating, surfing, diving, and other recreational activities are allowed.
Marine protected areas (MPAs) in the U.S. come in a variety of forms and are established and managed by all levels of government. There are marine sanctuaries, estuarine research reserves, ocean parks, and marine wildlife refuges. Each of these sites differ. MPAs may be established to protect ecosystems, preserve cultural resources such as shipwrecks and archaeological sites, or sustain fisheries production.
Read full article at source: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/mpa.html
Blue whales lack the ability to avoid cargo ships, says Stanford biologist
As the largest animals in the ocean, blue whales have not evolved defensive behaviors. New research by Stanford biologist Jeremy Goldbogen suggests this might explain why the whales are so prone to ship collisions.
GPS data from a blue whale shows the animal (blue dots) rising to the surface and then slowly dipping and narrowly missing a cargo ship (red dots) before diving deep once again.
For millions of years, blue whales have cruised the world’s oceans with hardly a care, their sheer size making them largely free from predator attacks. The downside to being the largest animals in history, however, is that the species was never pressured to evolve defensive behaviors.
Read full article at source: https://news.stanford.edu/2015/05/04/whales-ships-collisions-050415/
Gulf of Mexico ‘dead zone’ is the largest ever measured
June outlook foretold New Jersey-sized area of low oxygen
Scientists have determined this year’s Gulf of Mexico “dead zone,” an area of low oxygen that can kill fish and marine life, is 8,776 square miles, an area about the size of New Jersey. It is the largest measured since dead zone mapping began there in 1985.
Read full article at source: http://www.noaa.gov/media-release/gulf-of-mexico-dead-zone-is-largest-ever-measured
Ocean Acidification
Carbon dioxide in the water puts shelled animals at risk.
For tens of millions of years, Earth's oceans have maintained a relatively stable acidity level. It's within this steady environment that the rich and varied web of life in today's seas has arisen and flourished. But research shows that this ancient balance is being undone by a recent and rapid drop in surface pH that could have devastating global consequences.
Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/oceans/critical-issues-ocean-acidification/
Corals eat plastic because we’ve made it tasty, study suggests
By Ben Guarino October 30
“Plastics may be inherently tasty,” said Austin Allen, a Duke marine science doctoral student. Allen and Seymour are the lead authors of a study just published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin. Along with Duke marine ecologist Daniel Rittschof, they demonstrated that corals respond to microplastic fragments as though they were food.