Is Composting Good for the Ocean?
Everywhere I’ve lived, I’ve had two options for where to put my trash: a blue bin for things like newspapers, beverage bottles and other recyclables, and a not-blue bin for everything else. That changed when my husband a...
Is Composting Good for the Ocean?
Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup® (ICC) engages volunteers to clean up waterways around the world. Since its beginning in 1986, more than 17 million volunteers have collected more than 348 mill...
Cleaning Up Trash in Vietnam
Earlier this year, I had a front-row seat at the biggest international effort ever to tackle the scourge of plastic pollution. On March 2, 2022, the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA), meeting in Nairobi, Kenya...
Opportunity to End Plastic Pollution: A Global Agreement
The plastic pollution problem is vast. Plastics have been found everywhere from the Mariana Trench, the Earth’s deepest trough, to the top of Mount Everest, our planet’s highest peak. Yet this massive problem is one we c...
3 Ways You Can #SeaTheChange
The ocean is a vast and beautiful home to so many incredible animals. However, a growing number of creatures are finding their ocean homes polluted by trash. Every year, 11 million metric tons of plastics enter our ocean...
How Are Ocean Animals Impacted by Plastics?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved being on the water. I come to it naturally: My mother grew up in a family of sailors, and while I never had the chance to sail with them myself, I spent my childhood hearing abou...
Setting Sail to Collect Ghost Gear in Maine
A few weeks ago, I woke up to a series of text messages from friends and family. One read, “Umm, Anja are you on the reddit front page.” I did a double take. Yes, I had spent years studying how mealworms can eat plastics...
How Much Plastic Do Mealworms Really Eat?
After a two-year delay due to the pandemic, the United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference returned to an in-person event this June. Thousands of people from around the world gathered in Lisbon, Portugal, to discuss the bigges...
Building Power for the Ocean at the UN Ocean Conference
My colleagues and I like to joke that the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) is the World Cup of ocean conferences. Like the World Cup, it happens only every few years, and all the top teams, players and decision-mak...
The United Nations’ Plastics Agreement Must Include Ghost Gear
Post updated on June 30, 2022 This week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law historic legislation to combat the plastic pollution crisis. This is an incredible win for our ocean and sets California on the path t...