Ocean Ghosts Are Deadly
Yes, there are ghosts in the ocean. Not your typical ghouls, goblins or gremlins; but there are innumerous inanimate creatures posing far greater danger to the underwater realm: ghost nets. Ghost nets are just one compon...
Ocean Ghosts Are Deadly
Here’s some sad news from an article to be published in Marine Pollution Bulletin about fish and microplastics in the English Channel. Of the 504 fish collected, 36.5% had plastics in their gastrointestinal tracts....
One Third of Fish in New Study Contain Traces of Plastic
I’m not a morning person; so 4:30 am wakeups are not my idea of a good time. But increasingly my alarm seems to be going off around this time because tides don’t care about my sleep schedule. Plus, the most severely litt...
Unfortunately, “Junk Beach” Lives Up To Its Name
While over 65% of households donate to charities every year, setting aside extra money for your favorite nonprofit can be overwhelming when you are in a financial rough-patch. Still looking to pay it forward in the new y...
Five Things You Didn’t Know You Could Donate
What does citrus have to do with the ocean (besides keeping sailors scurvy-free)? Today, Grist’s “Ask Umbra” blog discussed how clementines, a fruit many people enjoy during the wintertime, could be har...
Ask Umbra: Eat a Baby Orange, Kill a Baby Seal?
Ghosts, goblins and ghouls—there’s no doubt about it, Halloween is a spooky time. But if there’s one thing scarier than skeletons in the trees, it’s trash on the street—trash that can wash into storm dr...
Trash or Treat? Six Ways To Have a Trash-Free Halloween
“What else can I do?” We’ve heard this question thousands of times from volunteers following the annual success of the International Coastal Cleanup. People get out to their local beach, river, or even in their neighborh...
Start your own Rippl™ Effect
Did you know that while clean clothes make you look and feel better, they could actually have the opposite effect on the ocean? By changing your laundry habits even slightly, you may be able to save money, save water and...
Do Your Clean Clothes Make the Ocean Dirty?
5. Sustainably-made cloth napkins cost less then buying paper napkins over the course of five years. Given current prices, if you bought the cloth napkins brand new, five year’s worth of eco-friendly cloth napkins for a...
Five Reasons to Use Cloth Napkins over Paper
How do you explain the magnitude of the ocean trash problem, particularly to people in a landlocked country like Switzerland? Put a representative sampling right in front of them. Check out this video of a crew setting u...