» Pollution



Southern Water found guilty of sea pollution at Worthing

The Worthing Herald reports, 4th August 2015: A jury took less than one hour to find Southern Water guilty of breaching environmental rules after the water company expelled 40million litres of raw sewage into the sea from its East Worthing treatment plant. The six men and six women took just 50 minutes to find the […]

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BP pay record fine for Gulf of Mexico oil spill

The Guardian reports, 2nd July 2015: “BP has agreed to pay a record environmental fine of $18.7bn to settle legal actions brought by the US and several states over the fatal 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The US justice department, along with the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Florida, all sued BP […]

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Microplastics are moving up the ocean food chain

The Vancouver Sun reports, 30th June 2015: “A new study from the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre suggests microplastic particles could pose a serious risk of physical harm to the fish and marine animals that consume them. Plastic fibres and particles in West Coast waters are being consumed and passed up the food chain by […]

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US bid to remove microbead plastics from the oceans

PlanetExperts.com reports, 28th June 2015: “Last week the California State Assembly passed California’s microbead ban, AB 888, with bipartisan support. Co-sponsored by the 5 Gyresgyre A circular pattern of currents in an ocean Institute, AB 888 would phase out plastic microbeads from consumer care products, stopping a major contributor of plastic pollution. This vital bill […]

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“Ghost nets” are an enduring hazard in the oceans

Deutsche Welle reports, 22nd May 2015: Ghost nets are fishing nets that have either been lost or discarded at sea. Small fish, which are usually the first to become trapped in their mesh, attract larger species and other marine predators including sharks, dolphins, sea turtles and even marine birds. When the weight of their incidental catch […]

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Drugs flushed down the toilet affect aquatic life, says US EPA

The Guardian reports, 20th May 2015: “Doctors should take into account the ‘downstream’ effects on the environment when they prescribe drugs, suggests a scientist at the US Environmental Protection Agency Around 80% of aquatic pharmaceutical pollution comes from domestic medicines (those that we take at home rather than in hospital), and while unused drugs that […]

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Legal challenge in US to deep-sea mineral mining

The Centre for Biological Diversity reports, 13th May 2015: “The Centre for Biological Diversity has commenced a lawsuit which sues the U.S. government over its first-ever approval for large-scale deep-sea mining, a destructive project between Hawaii and Mexico that would damage important habitat for whales, sharks and sea turtles and wipe out seafloor ecosystems. The […]

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Deep-sea mining for minerals : a personal view

Miyoko Sakashita, Oceans Director, Center for Biological Diversity, writes 14th May 2015: “Have you heard about the disastrous gold rush brewing in our oceans? “Not content with getting minerals from dry land, companies are now aiming to strip mine our ocean floors in search of nickel, copper, cobalt, gold and other valuable metals and minerals. […]

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Micro-plastics a major problem for the oceans, says report

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) reports, 27th April 2015: “Micro-plastics — tiny pieces of plastic or fibres which may act as a pathway for persistent, bio accumulating and toxic substances entering the food chain — are increasingly being found in the oceans and may prove to be as harmful to marine life as more obvious, […]

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Oceans are the world’s seventh largest economy, says WWF

The Guardian reports, 22nd April 2015: “The monetary value of the world’s oceans has been estimated at US$24tn in a new report [WWF: Reviving The Ocean Economy: The Case For Action — 2015] that warns that overfishing, pollution and climate change are putting an unprecedented strain upon marine ecosystems. The report, commissioned by WWF, states […]

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Deep sea fish showing adverse effects of pollution

Societyforscience.org reports, 19th April 2015: “Far below the ocean’s surface is a dark, mysterious world. There, it’s too deep for the sun’s rays to penetrate. Very few people have seen this world. Even fewer have studied the health of its inhabitants — oddly named fish such as the greater forkbeard, black scabbardfish and orange roughy. […]

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Norway approves plan to dump mining waste at sea

The Guardian reports, 17th April 2015: “Environmentalists promised civil disobedience after Norway’s government approved a controversial plan for a mining company to dump millions of tonnes of waste into a fjord. Campaigner Anne-Line Thingnes Førsund looks out over Norway’s Førde Fjord, where the mining company Nordic Mining has been approved to dump 6m tonnes of […]

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5 to 12 million tonnes of waste plastic entering the oceans each year

The Ecologist reports, 4th April 2015: “An unimaginably large volume of plastic debris is reaching the world’s oceans every year, write Britta Denise Hardesty & Chris Wilcox — and it’s set for a ten-fold increase over the next decade, adding to the already terrible toll on marine life from turtles to seals, sea birds and […]

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North East MEP tackles sea pollution at Whitburn

Europe and You reports, 10th March 2015: “The North Sea coast is heavily polluted, a new report has confirmed. “The European Environment Agency has collated data from across Europe looking at a number of different factors. “When it comes to water quality, the poorest quality showed up along the South coast of England, northern France, […]

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Stemming the presence of plastic bags in the oceans

Sarah Baulch on Isonomia, 27th March 2015, observes: “True horror lies not in crumbling Gothic graveyards or the trappings of midnight movies but in the disturbing implications of mundane things. Having spent years researching the impacts of marine debris and long hours looking at pictures of creatures with plastic clogging their stomachs, now when I […]

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Marinet Member produces leaflet which highlights the problem of plastic bags

Marinet Member, New Forest Friends of the Earth, has produced an information and campaigning leaflet on the dangers to marine wildlife and the ecosystems of the oceans from the ordinary plastic bag. We may wish to make use of this leaflet, and to view it visit https://www.marinet.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/PLASTIC-BAGS-really-so-bad.pdf

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Whitsand Bay (Cornwall) toxic dumping permit unlawful

BBC Online News reports, 21st January 2015: ”A coastal waters protection agency (MMO) unlawfully issued a licence for dumping thousands of tonnes of silt off Cornwall. The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has agreed to quash the licence and admitted it was “made unlawfully”. Papers filed at the High Court said there were “inadequacies” in the […]

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Plymouth campaigners opposing waste-dumping at sea win a victory

The campaign group ‘Stop Dumping in Whitsand Bay’ went to the High Court to seek a judicial review of the decision by the Maritime Management Organisation (MMO) to grant a licence to dump 367,000 tonnes of potentially toxic silt dredged from the River Tamar into Whitsand Bay, a local beauty spot as well as a […]

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Surfers Against Sewage produce major report and campaign for tackling marine litter

Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) have produced an incisive and impressive report on the problem of marine litter, and a series of constructive and practical proposals for reducing the severe problem that marine litter now creates. To see their report as a large pdf document, click here. The summary in their report advises: “Tackling this marine […]

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Marine pollution : 7 things you need to know

Judith Weis in an Oxford University Press blog, 1st November 2014, states: Marine pollution has long been a topic of concern, but what do you really know about the pollutants affecting the world’s waters? Judith Weis, author of Marine Pollution: What Everyone Needs to Know, answers this question: (1) Marine debris is much more than […]

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