The Marine Conservation Society is calling for volunteers across the UK to join them at the coast for a week of beach cleaning and litter surveying throughout the country in September, Oceanographic magazine reported. Last year, volunteers collected over five tonnes of litter, with an average of 3.85 items found for every metre of beach surveyed across the UK. “We wouldn’t […]
Beachgoers looking to quench their thirst will be able to refill their water bottles at more than 150 “hydration stations”. Council has launched an initiative to make drinking water more accessible to people along the seafront. The refill stations have been set up across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole in a bid to reduce plastic waste. […]
UK retailer Boots has vowed to stop selling all wet wipes that contain plastic fibres by the end of the year, Sky News reported. The pharmacy chain is one of the biggest sellers of wet wipes in the country, with more than 140 different brands stocked across skincare, baby, tissue and health care categories. After selling […]
Microplastics found in human blood for first time Microplastic pollution has been detected in human blood for the first time, with scientists finding the tiny particles in almost 80% of the people tested, the Guardian has reported. The discovery shows the particles can travel around the body and may lodge in organs. The impact on […]
As reported in ENDS [paywall] and the Independent, a new report by the Plastic Soup Foundation states that millions of waste plastic “nurdles” from UK sewage plants on the east coast are polluting the North Sea and reaching the Dutch coast. Sewage plants in Britain use black “bio beads”, also known as nurdles, to filter water, but spillages […]
Several studies have been published recently which highlight the accumulation of plastic in riverbed sediment and an underestimation of the volumes flowing into rivers. The first states that ‘hundreds of millions of microplastic particles could be flowing into UK rivers, hidden in raw sewage’. It goes on to say that ‘recently, there was public anger over […]
The much-anticipated talks on a potential ‘Plastic pact’ at UNEA 5 has produced a treaty on plastic waste which has been described as ‘historic’. We covered the run up to the talks in detail over previous weeks. There were reports late in the day that that manufacturers had been lobbying to weaken the treaty proposal, as […]
Reducing use of plastic, made from oil and gas, has implications for the climate as well as pollution levels, Inger Andersen, head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has said. More than 100 nations convening in Nairobi are expected to take the first steps toward establishing a historic global treaty to tackle the plastic crisis […]