At the 68th International Whaling Commission conference (IWC68) in Slovenia in October, member nations adopted a resolution to support international negotiations on a treaty to tackle plastic pollution. Countries will…
Public outreach campaigns educate consumers with compelling data and storytelling about carbon footprints, natural resource scarcity, and climate change. Data appeals to our intellect and stories appeal to our emotions.…
At the beginning of March, the world agreed to move forward on a landmark international agreement to control plastic pollution. Now the real work begins on vigorously turning that consensus…
Plastics today are blighted, as their impact on the environment has now been exposed. But it was not always so. In 1869, the first synthetic polymer named celluloid - marked…
Plastics, which are infinitely useful materials, are ever present in our lives today. A quick look around one’s house, whether in a city or in a village, will confirm this…
Plastics are the Anthropocene era’s ultimate convenience. The more mundane uses of plastics in our lives range from kitchenware, storage containers, and packaging materials to toys and small tools that…
Most of us forget about our waste once it is discarded into dustbins or municipal garbage trucks. Municipalities and waste management companies are only at the tip of an iceberg…
New human-made chemicals and synthetic pollutants constantly enter production across the world even as many thousands of these chemicals are already circulating throughout the planet. There's so many, in fact,…
As the COVID-19 pandemic brought sweeping changes to lifestyles, it also altered an important but seldom thought-of aspect of human existence – trash. The pandemic has drastically changed the types and…
Several reports and assessments in the recent past have tracked the sharp growth of plastic pollution and canvassed for the need to tackle plastic pollution at a global level. There…
Over the last decade, the waste industry has been quietly growing. Given the growing rates of trash generation, this is hardly a surprise. In 2012, the world generated 1.3 billion…
The largest division on the geological time scale (GTS), which depicts distinct time periods in geological history, is called eons. Eons are further divided into eras, which are divided further…
Plastic is a boon to many industries as a versatile material that can be moulded into myriad products from simple packaging bags to life-saving medical devices. When a plastic product…
In an effort to identify plastic accumulation and leakage hotspots along the Ganges river, a recent project in three north Indian cities found that roughly 10–25% of all the plastic…
Bihar’s capital Patna will soon get a plastic waste processing plant, according to the recommendations of the Fifteenth Finance Commission. Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Varanasi are the other cities selected for…
Though still a niche market, “environment-friendly chocolates”, which are being developed with low-waste processes and social consciousness, are gaining a steady, loyal customer base in India. For Nitin Chordia, the…
Dive into the clear, shallow waters of the Gulf of Mannar and you'd be met with more than a hundred species of corals. Among these vivid corals of varying shapes…
The endangered Ganges river dolphin and species of threatened freshwater turtle and otter are wildlife “most at risk” from getting tangled up in waste fishing gear adrift in the transboundary…
On September 16, when Subhash Chandran, a scuba diver, along with four others, went for their first underwater clean-up post the lockdown at Rushikonda beach in Visakhapatnam, they found floating…
Marine plastic debris is a widespread problem with an ever-growing list of animals entangled in fishing gear cropping up along shorelines around the world — sometimes resulting in death. In…
