Search

The United States contains 5% of the world’s population, yet consumes about a quarter of the planet’s resources. Much of this consumption stems from our “throw away” lifestyle, whereby many products are used once and then thrown away. This started in the 1950s, when the plastics and chemical industries sold the American public on the convenience of single-use disposable items. In 2011, the average American produced 4.4 pounds of household garbage per day, twice as much as in 1960. Today, the throw away lifestyle has big upstream and downstream impacts on climate change, community health, and

Aquariums are in a great position to educate their visitors about the harmful impacts of plastic pollution. Lots of people visit aquariums—more than 183 million, worldwide, each year—and, according to research, they trust them more than most other public and private agencies.

I was thrilled to be invited to speak at a gathering of Aquarium staff from all over the country in Monterey Bay last month. About 100 guests representing 20 aquariums, nine environmental non-profits, a handful of consultancies, and a food and retail service provider participated in the event.

We know that 80% of marine

Sometimes injustice at the community level, where neighbors live in close proximity to a major polluter for decades, demands that we pull out all the stops. The on-going tragedy taking place in Saugus, Massachusetts is that kind of environmental justice disaster.

Saugus is home to the oldest trash incinerator in the state and its owner, Wheelabrator, is proposing to expand the ash landfill on the site–despite the fact that the landfill is unlined, is smack in the middle of a beautiful marsh formally designated as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern, and surrounded by densely-settled low