26 May 2026
Photo by Naja Bertolt Jensen Food and beverage packaging has been confirmed as the world’s most common form of marine litter, in the first study to provide a globally harmonised overview of shoreline debris by usage type. Led by the University of Plymouth and published in the journal One Earth, the research brings together and evaluates more […]
14 Apr 2026
Image description: A puffin with fish in its beak. Photo by Tim Morgan Defra published its updated UK Marine Strategy Part One on 7 April 2026 – the first full update since 2019 and the opening of the strategy’s third six-year implementation cycle. The headline finding is stark: the UK is failing to meet Good Environmental Status in […]
30 Apr 2024
The UK’s bottle deposit and return scheme (DRS) has faced yet another delay, pushing its launch back to October 2027, four years later than originally planned. The BBC has reported that the delay was primarily attributed to disagreements between the UK and Welsh governments over whether to include glass in the scheme. Prolonged negotiations Initially, […]
19 Mar 2024
By Samantha Garrard, Senior Marine Ecosystem Services Researcher at Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Plastic has been found in every single part of the ocean, from the surface to the seafloor and from the tropics to the poles. Land-based sources of plastic account for the majority of this pollution, with plastic bags, bottles, wrappers, food containers and cutlery among […]
10 Mar 2024
By Samantha Garrard, Senior Marine Ecosystem Services Researcher at Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Plastic has been found in every single part of the ocean, from the surface to the seafloor and from the tropics to the poles. Land-based sources of plastic account for the majority of this pollution, with plastic bags, bottles, wrappers, food containers and cutlery among […]
21 Nov 2023
Boat owners in the Dee Estuary are being invited to engage with plans to help tackle the issue of abandoned derelict vessels which are at risk of releasing harmful pollutants into the environment. Derelict and abandoned boats around the Welsh coast cause extensive problems in marine protected areas through issues such as loss of habitat […]
22 Nov 2022
Thousands of pieces of plastic debris from all over the world have washed up on a remote South Atlantic island, according to conservationists. Litter found on the south-western coast of Ascension Island has been traced back to countries including China, Japan and South Africa, they say. The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) team […]
18 Oct 2022
Two per cent of all fishing gear used worldwide ends up polluting the oceans, new research finds. To put that into perspective, the amount of longline fishing gear littering the ocean each year can circle the Earth more than 18 times. Researchers as CSIRO, the Australian government’s scientific research centre, found that 740,000km of […]
