At the beginning of the 20th century, more than 100,000 Asian elephants were living in the wild. Now, it is estimated that just 52,000 remain. Among the reasons for their decline — in addition to poaching and human-elephant conflict — is the boom of newly built roads and railways, which lead to collisions, habitat loss and fragmentation and the blocking of migration routes.
To help with this crisis, an international team of experts has created the first handbook on how to protect endangered Asian elephants from this widespread hazard.
“Elephants need to move to survive — to find food, water, and mates. In some cases, new roads and railways are being built right across ancient Asian elephant migration routes,” said Rob Ament, handbook co-author, Asian Elephant Transport Working Group (AsETWG) co-chair and senior conservationist with the Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC), in a press release from AsETWG.
According to the press release, authors of the handbook included nine elephant and transport ecology experts from AsETWG, along with two staff members from CLLC.
The goal is to put the resource into the hands of government officials, transportation planners, engineers, policymakers, financiers and others who would find it useful in the 13 nations where wild Asian elephants still roam.
Ament said that, due to the rapid rate at which linear infrastructure is being developed in Asia, Asian elephants will become increasingly impacted by roads and railways. This makes it all the more essential to avoid and mitigate these impacts in order to protect the endangered species.
A newly constructed elephant overpass spanning a new railway line in southeastern Bangladesh reconnects an elephant travel corridor. Bangladesh Railway
“This publication combines decades of experience from the contributors and is a prime example of collaboration across sectors and political boundaries to tackle a serious conservation issue,” said co-author of the handbook Melissa Butynski, AsETWG coordinator and an international connectivity project specialist with CLLC, in the press release.
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species lists Asian elephants as “endangered,” with increasingly isolated populations in Indonesia, Cambodia, Bhutan, China, Bangladesh, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and Nepal.
“People living and working in countries with Asian elephants see the very real threats from linear infrastructure this incredible species faces. There is a sense of urgency to act before it’s too late,” Butynski said.
The authors of the handbook plan to introduce its recommendations in the countries where Asian elephants still live. They will help facilitate solutions through in-person workshops and webinars for conservationists, researchers, government officials and others with the desire to protect these majestic and gentle creatures.
“I hope these guidelines find wide usage across the elephant range and that it is adapted and translated into local languages, so that its use across all 13 countries that still have the Asian elephant is encouraged,” wrote Vivek Menon, author of the foreword to the handbook, Wildlife Trust of India co-founder and chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Asian Elephant Specialist Group, in the press release.
Swiss air quality monitoring company IQAir has released its sixth World Air Quality Report, detailing 2023’s most polluted countries and territories in the world.
In compiling the report, more than 30,000 monitoring stations in 134 nations, territories and regions were examined by IQAir scientists, a press release from IQAir said. Of these, 124 — 92.5 percent — exceeded the annual guideline set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for fine particulate matter (PM2.5).
“Causing an estimated one in every nine deaths worldwide, air pollution is the greatest environmental threat to human health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution is responsible for an estimated seven million premature deaths worldwide every year,” IQAir said.
Meanwhile, the most polluted countries last year were Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan and Burkina Faso.
“A clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a universal human right. In many parts of the world the lack of air quality data delays decisive action and perpetuates unnecessary human suffering. Air quality data saves lives. Where air quality is reported, action is taken, and air quality improves,” said Frank Hammes, IQAir Global CEO, in the press release.
The most underrepresented continent in the report was Africa, where one-third of the population does not have access to data on air quality. Just 24 of 54 countries on the continent had sufficient monitoring data, IQAir said, as CNN reported.
In Southeast Asia, almost every country saw PM2.5 concentrations rise, with transboundary haze and climate conditions affecting the region.
The planet’s ten most polluted cities in 2023 were all located in Central and South Asia. The four most polluted were in India, with Begusarai taking the top spot.
“We see that in every part of our lives that air pollution has an impact,” Hammes said, as reported by CNN. “And it typically, in some of the most polluted countries, is likely shaving off anywhere between three to six years of people’s lives. And then before that will lead to many years of suffering that are entirely preventable if there’s better air quality.”
In the United States, the most polluted city was Beloit, Wisconsin, while the most polluted major city was Columbus, Ohio, the report said.
On the flipside, the cleanest major U.S. city was Las Vegas.
Fine particulate matter has been linked to many serious health issues.
“Exposure to PM2.5 air pollution leads to and exacerbates numerous health conditions, including but not limited to asthma, cancer, stroke, and lung disease. Additionally, exposure to elevated levels of fine particles can impair cognitive development in children, lead to mental health issues, and complicate existing illnesses including diabetes,” IQAir said.
For the first time, the report found Canada to be North America’s most polluted country with 13 of the most polluted cities in the region located there.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, low-cost sensors were used to gather 70 percent of the air quality data collected in real-time.
“While the number of countries and regions with air quality monitoring has steadily increased over the past six years, there remain significant gaps in government-operated regulatory instrumentation in many parts of the world,” IQAir explained. “Low-cost air quality monitors, sponsored and hosted by citizen scientists, researchers, community advocates, and local organizations, have proven to be valuable tools to reduce gaps in air monitoring networks across the world.”
According to independent air quality monitors, there has been a disproportionate amount of exposure to harmful air among underrepresented and vulnerable groups. Gaps in the monitoring data in places where air quality is likely poor highlight the necessity of expanding global air quality monitoring coverage.
“IQAir’s annual report illustrates the international nature and inequitable consequences of the enduring air pollution crisis. Local, national, and international effort is urgently needed to monitor air quality in under-resourced places, manage the causes of transboundary haze, and cut our reliance on combustion as an energy source,” said Aidan Farrow, Greenpeace International senior air quality scientist, in the press release. “In 2023, air pollution remained a global health catastrophe. IQAir’s global data set provides an important reminder of the resulting injustices and the need to implement the many solutions that exist to this problem.”
The report pointed out that, by changing weather patterns that affect rainfall and wind, the climate crisis has a major influence on air pollution levels, as CNN reported. And as extreme heat events happen more frequently and become increasingly severe, it will lead to increased air pollution.
“We have such a strong overlap of what’s causing our climate crisis and what’s causing air pollution,” Hammes said, as reported by CNN. “Anything that we can do to reduce air pollution will be tremendously impactful in the long term also for improving our climate gas emissions, and vice versa.”
The Oregon Outback, an area of southeastern Oregon, has earned a new designation as the largest of the Dark Sky Sanctuaries not just in the U.S., but internationally.
DarkSky International, a nonprofit organization with a mission to educate on and minimize light pollution, has certified that Phase 1 of the Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary (OOIDSS) is now a International Dark Sky Sanctuary. With this certification, the Oregon Outback sanctuary is the largest of the 19 certified International Dark Sky Sanctuary sites in the world, The Guardian reported.
According to DarkSky International, Phase 1 of OOIDSS spans 2.5 million acres in Lake County, Oregon, and the finalized area of OOIDSS will cover 11.4 million acres.
“As the population of Oregon and the trend of light pollution continue to rise, the unparalleled scale and quality of the Outback’s dark skies will long serve as a starry refuge for people and wildlife alike,” DarkSky Delegate Dawn Nilson said in a statement. “Adherence to the [Lighting Management Plan] will allow this large expanse of land to serve as a demonstration site of sustainable lighting principles not only within southeastern Oregon but possibly the Pacific Northwest Region.”
The David L. Shirk Ranch in the Guano Valley of eastern Lake County, Oregon on Aug. 22, 2022. Robert Shea / Flickr
The area regionally known as the Oregon Outback is remote, mostly comprising public lands, which make up about 68% of the certified Dark Sky area. The landscape is considered high desert, with some mountains alongside the desert valleys. As DarkSky International reported, many wildlife like migratory birds, bighorn sheep, sage grouse, American pronghorn and white-tailed jackrabbits have their habitats in this region.
The area is also culturally significant. It includes some of the oldest known sites in North America that humans occupied at least 18,000 years ago, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported. The region is also home of the Indigenous Northern Paiute people, DarkSky International noted.
The certification helps protect the region from light pollution, which can disrupt wildlife. A study published in the journal Science in 2023 found that light pollution is growing by nearly 10% each year.
“The extensive wetlands of Lake County are one of the most important habitats of the Pacific Flyway,” said Phil Milburn, a district manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. “Recent efforts by partners in Lake County to preserve dark skies is a welcomed action to protect wildlife from the well documented negative impacts of light pollution.”
As part of the nomination to certify the Oregon Outback as an International Dark Sky Sanctuary, officials and community members had to monitor the local night skies and take lighting inventories, in addition to removing some lights and retrofitting other lights to reduce light pollution.
The announcement of Oregon’s new Dark Sky Sanctuary comes ahead of International Dark Sky Week 2024, which will take place from April 2 to April 8, 2024, WDHN reported. The event is meant to raise awareness of light pollution and will take place during the total solar eclipse that will be visible in much of North America.
The nation’s insurance industry has gone haywire in recent years amid a succession of floods, fires, and other climate-fueleddisasters. These catastrophes have forced carriers to pay out billions in claims, and many have responded by raising premiums in disaster-prone states like Florida and Oregon or leaving certain markets altogether.
But many of these companies also provide coverage for fossil fuel projects, like pipelines and natural gas power plants, that would never be built without their backing. This gives the insurance industry a unique role on both sides of the climate crisis: insurers are helping make the problem worse by underwriting the very projects that warm the earth even as they bear the costs of mounting climate disasters and pass them on to customers.
Legislation in Connecticut, the capital of the American insurance industry and home to several of its largest carriers, could make insurers pay for that contradiction. If passed, the bill, which just cleared a committee vote in the state senate, would move toward imposing a fee for any fossil-fuel projects companies insure in state. That revenue would go into a public resilience fund that could underwrite sea walls and urban flood protection measures.
“It’s important to begin to hold [insurers] accountable for how they’ve played it both ways in terms of climate change,” said Tom Swan, the executive director of Connecticut Citizen Action Group, an economic justice nonprofit that has joined several environmental organizations in lobbying the legislature to pass the bill along with several environmental organizations. “People are seeing skyrocketing rates, or they’re pulling out of different areas, and they continue to underwrite and invest in fossil fuels at a pace much greater than their colleagues across the globe,” he said.
The group pushed a more aggressive proposal last year that would have charged insurers a 5 percent fee for any fossil fuel coverage they issued in the United States, but that bill failed after critics raised several legal questions. In particular, the industry argued that the Constitution’s interstate commerce clause prohibits taxing a company’s out-of-state business.
The new version, attached as an amendment to a climate resilience bill proposed by Democratic Governor Ned Lamont, would only require the state to produce a proposal for an insurance mechanism. The surcharge would apply only to fossil-fuel projects these companies insure in Connecticut, avoiding that constitutional challenge.
The assessment would apply not only to new pipelines and fuel terminals, which require ample insurance to attract lenders and investors, but to current coverage for existing infrastructure as well. This means anyone covering the state’s dozens of oil- and gas-fueled power plants would be contributing to the resilience fund. A report from Connecticut Citizen Action Group and several other environmental nonprofits found that the state’s insurers have together invested $221 billion in fossil fuels.
Supporters argue the reduced fee would still raise tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for climate resilience. Connecticut received about $318 million in FEMA disaster aid between 2011 and 2021, or about $149 in spending per capita, according to the climate adaptation nonprofit Rebuild by Design. That puts the state well below disaster-prone locales like Louisiana, which saw $1,736 in federal disaster aid per capita, but far above those like Delaware that haven’t experienced a major disaster in the past decade.
Eric George, the president of the Insurance Association of Connecticut, the state’s largest insurance trade association, said the organization would “strongly oppose” any surcharge, but added that he was still studying the bill.
The legislation comes as other states, including Vermont and Maryland, introduce “polluters pay” bills to hold oil producers accountable for climate damages. Connecticut’s proposed law is an iteration of that effort focused on an area where state regulators wield significant influence, said Risalat Khan of the Sunrise Project, a nonprofit focused on energy transition policy.
“People are very directly seeing their premiums rise, in relation to climate disasters,” he said. “There’s a direct question there of, why aren’t state level regulators using more of their power to take local action?”
The significance of this financing mechanism could vary from state to state, says Benjamin Keys, a professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on climate insurance risks.
“One major issue is that the fuels are collected and burned everywhere, but the pain of natural disasters is local in nature,” he said. Because of that, he questioned whether the financing mechanism “would be feasible for all communities to emulate, because many places have [lots of] disasters hit, but very little in the way of fossil fuel production.” Florida, for instance, doesn’t have much more fossil-fuel infrastructure than Connecticut, but faces extreme weather and other catastrophes far more often.
Even though the legislation is weaker than the previous version, supporters say passing it in the home of the country’s insurance industry would send a message to big companies that are still underwriting oil and gas projects.
“I think it’s a good policy, but from a narrative-setting perspective, it’s really important,” said Swan.
Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to stop the construction of a copper mine in Arizona on land sacred to the San Carlos Apache Tribe as well as other Indigenous nations. Chí’chil Biłdagoteel, also known as Oak Flat, sits atop the third largest copper deposit on the planet and is essential to green energy projects. The operation, which will be run by Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP, will leave a crater nearly 1,000 feet deep and 2 miles wide.
“Oak Flat is like Mount Sinai to us — our most sacred site where we connect with our Creator, our faith, our families and our land,” said Wendsler Noise of Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit fighting to protect the area. “We vow to appeal to the Supreme Court.”
Over the years, Oak Flat has developed a storied history. In 2014, Oak Flat was a part of a military spending bill that would allow the government to “swap” the area with other land in Arizona. In 2016, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in an attempt to protect it, and in 2021 the Apache Stronghold sued the government, arguing that the land was reserved for the Western Apaches in an 1852 treaty. Then, in 2023, Apache Stronghold made the case that the land transfer would keep them from exercising their religion. The court disagreed.
The issue before the court illustrates a battle between religion, Indigenous rights, and potential solutions to the climate crisis. For tribal nations like the San Carlos Apache who practice what are known as “land-based religions” — ceremonial practices that are inextricably tied to areas Indigenous peoples have relationships with — preserving those lands with religious significance is paramount to the survival, and transmission, of both culture and values to the next generation.
But for developers, the proposed mine would support a few thousand jobs for the surrounding community, inject $61 billion into the local economy, and provide a critical supply of copper for everything from electric vehicles to energy storage systems. By 2031, the world will need almost 37 million metric tons of copper to continue the process of green-energy electrification. Resolution Copper said that Oak Flat could provide a quarter of U.S. copper production.
At the heart of Apache Stronghold’s legal case is something called “substantial burden” — there must be proof that the government has interfered with an individual’s right to practice their religious beliefs. Substantial burden protects U.S. citizens from government interference, unless the government has a really good reason. That means Apache Stronghold’s claim needs to be justified with a high level of scrutiny.
If the case goes to the Supreme Court, and Apache Stronghold wins, the federal government would need to show a compelling reason to destroy Oak Flat.
“If the Supreme Court finds that land transfer of Oak Flat is a substantial burden on Apache religious practice, then the court sends the case back down to the lower court,” said Beth Margaret Wright, who is from the Pueblo of Laguna and is an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund. “Then that would be on the government to prove that the land transfer is narrowly tailored toward a compelling government interest.”
Wright said that’s a pretty high bar for the government to meet, and it’s complicated by the court’s history with land-based religions.
According to the court’s recent decision, Oak Flat is similar to an older case out of California: Lyng v. The Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association. In the 1980s, the United States Forest Service was sued by the Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association over the proposed construction of a road. The Yurok, Karuk, and Tolowa tribes argued the road would irreparably damage an area where tribal members conducted religious ceremonies.
Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could do what it wanted with its land and said that the government couldn’t be held responsible for the religious needs of its citizens — a kind of “slippery slope” that recognized that a favorable ruling for the tribes would provide a veto button for other Indigenous nations on public projects in the future. In its ruling, the Supreme Court acknowledged that there were deeply held religious beliefs tied to the land, but the road was built anyway.
Joe Davis, an attorney with Becket Law, the firm defending Apache Stronghold, said the narrow focus on Lyng is what is at issue with Oak Flat: He says it’s the wrong framing.
Five years after the Lyng decision, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, was passed. Because RFRA was written to expand religious protections, the Apache Stronghold seeks the expanded protections under RFRA to be applied to Oak Flat.
“This is a case, at its heart, about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which uses different language and is broader than the First Amendment,” said Davis.
And that argument has some history with the courts. In 2012, Becket also defended Hobby Lobby at the Supreme Court and won using the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In that case, the court decided that under RFRA, the family that owns Hobby Lobby could opt out of providing birth control to employees under federal insurance laws due to religious beliefs. Essentially, the court found that the federal government was imposing a substantial burden because the use of birth control violated the owners’ religious freedoms.
“Hobby Lobby shows that RFRA is very powerful,” said Davis. “This case is an opportunity for the Supreme Court to make good on the promise of RFRA.”
The Ninth Circuit decided that in Oak Flat, substantial burden wasn’t met, citing the Lyng case. But the Lyng case doesn’t define substantial burden, RFRA does, and Davis argues that the court made a leap applying substantial burden when the concept wasn’t used in the Lyng case. Basically, the court didn’t use the broad protections offered by RFRA and instead applied a ruling from a pre-RFRA world.
If the case gets picked up by the U.S. Supreme Court, and Apache Stronghold wins, this would help clarify substantial burden. But with that clarity, there may come many more legal battles testing the limits of the First Amendment for Indigenous peoples.
“It might help us in the sense that now a substantial burden is more encompassing of land-based religions,” said Beth Margaret Wright with the Native American Rights Fund. “But it doesn’t necessarily mean that our land-based religions and practices are forever protected.”
A spokesperson with the U.S. Forest Service, the agency named in the lawsuit, declined to comment citing ongoing litigation.
Orca whales are familiar residents of West Coast waters. The black and white marine mammals are often seen swimming in groups, diving and slapping their tails against the water’s surface.
Researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) believe that a group of 49 killer whales seen hunting sperm whales and other marine animals in the ocean off the coasts of Oregon and California may be a separate population, a press release from UBC said.
The researchers said the orcas could be a unique oceanic population or part of a transient killer whale subpopulation.
“The open ocean is the largest habitat on our planet and observations of killer whales in the high seas are rare,” said Josh McInnes, lead author of the study and a UBC masters student at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF), in the press release. “In this case, we’re beginning to get a sense of killer whale movements in the open ocean and how their ecology and behaviour differs from populations inhabiting coastal areas.”
There are three killer whale ecotypes living in waters off the Oregon and California coasts — “offshores,” “residents” and “transients.”
According to the researchers, the unidentified orcas have been seen previously. The study puts together information gathered during nine encounters from 1997 to 2021.
“It’s pretty unique to find a new population. It takes a long time to gather photos and observations to recognize that there’s something different about these killer whales,” said study co-author Dr. Andrew Trites, a professor at IOF, in the press release.
Descriptions and photos did not match any of the group of 49 with known orcas.
“In one of the first encounters researchers had with a pod of these oceanic killer whales, they were observed taking on a herd of nine adult female sperm whales, eventually making off with one. It is the first time killer whales have been reported to attack sperm whales on the west coast,” McInnes said in the press release. “Other encounters include an attack on a pygmy sperm whale, predation on a northern elephant seal and Risso’s dolphin, and what appeared to be a post-meal lull after scavenging a leatherback turtle.”
Based on shark bite scars seen on nearly all the orcas in the new group, the research team believes they mostly live in the deep ocean far from the coast.
“The presence of cookiecutter shark wounds provides indirect evidence that these unknown killer whales had spent time in warmer oceanic waters,” the study said, as The Canadian Press reported.
The killer whales are also physically distinct from the three principal ecotypes in their white or grey patches next to the fin — known as “saddle patches” — and their dorsal fins.
“While the sizes and shapes of the dorsal fins and saddle patches are similar to transient and offshore ecotypes, the shape of their fins varied, from pointed like transients to rounded like offshore killer whales,” McInnes said in the press release. “Their saddle patch patterns also differed, with some having large uniformly gray saddle patches and others having smooth narrow saddle patches similar to those seen in killer whales in tropical regions.”
The study, “Evidence for an Oceanic Population of Killer Whales (Orcinus orca) in Offshore Waters of California and Oregon,” was published in the journal Aquatic Mammals.
Trites said birding and whale watching expedition passengers, as well as fishers, gave them additional observations of the unidentified whales.
The research team hopes to document acoustic data, genetic information and more sightings to continue their investigation into the differences between these whales and known populations.
“We’re just kind of at the tip of the iceberg of what these whales are doing. I mean, are they all one population? Are they multiple? We don’t know. So, I feel like this is kind of the big start of the next steps in our research, and to maybe get more sightings and more information,” said McInnes, as reported by The Canadian Press.
February’s average global temperature on land and the ocean’s surface was 2.52 degrees Fahrenheit above the century’s average of 53.8 degrees Fahrenheit — the warmest February in the 175-year NOAA planetary climate record.
“Temperatures were warmer to much-warmer-than-average across the Arctic with the exception of much of Greenland to northern Iceland, and parts of the North Atlantic,” NOAA said. “Above-average to much-above-average temperatures also covered almost all of North America, most of western Europe into western Asia, most of South America, Africa and Australia. Record warm February temperatures affected many parts of Europe, South America, and in the southern half of Africa.”
North and South America and Europe broke February temperature records, while it was the second-warmest February ever recorded in Africa, a NOAA press release said.
It was also the warmest meteorological winter — December 2030 to February 2024 — on record in the Northern Hemisphere and the warmest meteorological summer in the Southern Hemisphere. The global surface temperature was 2.45 degrees Fahrenheit above average for the 20th century.
“Record-warm temperatures covered approximately 13.8% of the world’s surface this February, which was the highest percentage for February since the start of records in 1951, and 7.4% higher than the previous February record in 1986,” NOAA said.
Sea surface temperatures were warmer than average for much of the western, northern and equatorial Pacific Ocean, the tropical and northeastern Atlantic Ocean and large portions of the Indian Ocean.
There is a 45 percent likelihood that this year will be the warmest in NOAA’s record-keeping history, as well as a 99 percent chance 2024 will be among the top five hottest years.
Ice coverage worldwide was also low, according to the report.
“Global sea ice extent (coverage) was the fourth smallest in the 46-year record, at 460,000 square miles below the 1991–2020 average. Arctic sea ice extent was slightly below average (by 100,000 square miles), whereas Antarctic sea ice extent was substantially below average (by 370,000 square miles), ranking second smallest on record,” reported NOAA.
Weather activity in the tropics was also heightened in February, with 11 named storms around the world — above the average of seven for the period 1991 to 2020. Just two of the storms made landfall, in northern Australia.
Just one tropical cyclone — Djoungou — spun in the central Indian Ocean, away from land. The Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans did not see any active storms, save for Akara — a weak tropical cyclone in the South Atlantic. Akara was notable, however, since tropical storm development there is usually inhibited by atmospheric conditions.
Copernicus Climate Change Service Director Carlo Buentempo commented that the record-breaking temperatures in February were “not really surprising,” reported Earth.Org.
“The climate responds to the actual concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere so, unless we manage to stabilise those, we will inevitably face new global temperature records and their consequences,” said Buentempo.
A new study warns that athletes playing sports on artificial turf could become covered in per- and polyfluorinated substances, or PFAS, present in the turf.
Researchers from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) conducted a small-scale study of young athletes, as well as their coaches, who played soccer on an artificial turf field. The results showed that three out of four people on the artificial turf had an increase in the amount of PFAS on their skin, while those who played on real grass fields did not have increases in PFAS levels on the skin.
On one player, the amount of PFAS on the skin after playing on the artificial turf more than doubled the amount on the player’s skin tested before playing, The Guardian reported.
“Although this was a preliminary study, it raises red flags and calls for additional studies to determine what risk there is of dermal absorption of PFAS from artificial turf,” Kyla Bennett, science policy director for PEER, said in a press release.
According to Bennett, athletes playing on artificial turf could inhale or ingest PFAS or absorb these chemicals through skin contact.
“It’s also important to note that knowledge of dermal uptake of PFAS is severely lacking, but it may be a significant exposure pathway,” Bennett said.
PFAS, or forever chemicals, are synthetic chemicals that may never break down in the environment. Scientists are still conducting more research on how PFAS affect human health and the environment, but previous studies show these chemicals could be linked to negative reproductive impacts, developmental impacts in children or even increased risks of certain types of cancer.
While the findings of the study are preliminary, they do highlight the pervasiveness of PFAS and provide additional research on PFAS in faux grass. In 2019, lab tests showed PFAS in the backing of artificial turf and fluorine in the plastic-based blades of fake grass, which could indicate PFAS in the faux grass blades, as reported by The Intercept.
Artificial turf is often used for sports fields to reduce maintenance needs, or it may be used in drought-prone areas as an alternative to real grass that requires a lot of water. PFAS are common in waterproof or weatherproof products, including artificial turf, and can be found in the many layers that make up this kind of ground cover.
The issue of PFAS in artificial grass was brought up recently in the California legislature, when lawmakers proposed banning PFAS in synthetic turf. The bill was vetoed by California Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2023, as the governor noted that the bill did not name a regulatory agency to enforce the ban, Cal Matters reported.
According to PEER, there are about 12,000 to 13,000 sports fields with artificial turf in the U.S. But aside from concerns about PFAS exposure for humans, Bennett noted that these so-called forever chemicals can also leach into local environments.
“In 2024, the last thing we should be doing is putting down acres of a plastic fossil fuel product… with chemicals that are going to get all over athletes’ skin, and into soil and water,” Bennett told The Guardian. “It just boggles my mind that people are still considering using this stuff.”
Eight million tons of plastic reaches our oceans annually. The top plastic marine debris items are cigarette butts, food wrappers, beverage bottles and lids.
Ocean currents pull plastic into convergence zones called “gyres” that form patches of waste at their centers. The largest is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is twice the size of Texas.
Various technologies are being employed to clean up ocean plastic: Seabin vacuums in litter and microplastics; Wasser 3.0 swirls hybrid silica gels in a vortex to form microplastic agglomerates; the Great Bubble Barrier pushes plastic to the surface of Amsterdam’s canals using air bubbles.
The Ocean Cleanup is one of the most well-known cleanup efforts in the ocean, primarily targeting the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The organization aims to eliminate 90% of floating plastic in the oceans by 2040.
Cleanup efforts have been criticized for their impact on marine ecosystems, particularly the neuston floating on the ocean’s surface and the fish trapped in plastic-catching nets.
Ocean Plastic: The Basics
Turkish free-diver Sahika Encumen dives to raise awareness of plastic pollution by the Bosphorus coastline of Istanbul, Turkey on June 27, 2020. Sebnem Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The Earth’s oceans are teeming with life — and with plastic. In fact, by 2050, it’s expected that there will be even more plastic in the ocean than fish.
Adding to the 150 million tons already in marine environments, eight million tons of plastic reaches our oceans every year. While the Ocean Dumping Ban Act of 1988 (also known as the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act) banned dumping waste directly into the ocean in the United States, waste still makes its way into waterways through illegal dumping and other means. Without proper systems worldwide for handling and disposing of waste, it can easily end up in rivers and eventually make its way into the ocean. In coastal areas especially, rainwater can flush litter into storm drains and eventually into the ocean.
Of the 380 million tons of plastic produced every year, 50% is single use products, much of which makes its way into oceans. Some top marine debris items, according to NOAA, are cigarette butts, food wrappers, plastic beverage bottles and lids.
Great Pacific Garbage Patch
When plastic makes its way into the ocean, some of it is pulled by ocean currents to consolidate in specific areas forming “patches” at their centers. There are five of these convergence zones, called “gyres” — one in the Indian Ocean, two in the Atlantic Ocean and two in the Pacific Ocean — and they are often the focus of large-scale ocean cleanup efforts. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is one of the largest and most well-known patches, and is located in the North Pacific Gyre between Hawaii and California. The patch is 1.6 million square kilometers: 2x the size of Texas and 3x the size of France. Within it are an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic; some are macroplastics — like cigarette butts, medical waste, plastic bags and bottles, abandoned fishing gear, etc. — but the majority of the debris is made up of microplastics. Overall, the majority (by count) of plastic pieces in the garbage patches consists of those smaller than 5mm in size.
A common misconception of these gyres and patches within them is that they’re just giant, floating mats of garbage. In reality, a lot of the waste floats below the surface of the water, and there are different concentrations throughout the patch itself — so some parts of it just look like regular ocean from above.
Why Is Ocean Plastic a Problem?
Ocean-bound plastic is expected to triple by 2040 if drastic action isn’t taken to reduce both our consumption and our waste management practices. Once plastic reaches the ocean, it causes serious harm to marine life and can impact global economies like fisheries and wildlife tourism.
Microplastics
Microplastics on the beach in Schiavonea, Calabria, Italy, transported by the Ionian sea during a sea storm, on March 2, 2019. Alfonso Di Vincenzo / KONTROLAB / LightRocket via Getty Images
Since the early 2000s, scientists have become aware of the presence of microplastics in oceans, although they’ve lingered in these marine ecosystems since the 1960s. Microplastics are tiny plastic fragments of five millimeters or less in diameter. “Primary” microplastics were created at that size for products like microbeads and plastic fibers used in synthetic fabrics, while “secondary” microplastics form from larger pieces of plastic as they degrade in the environment under the forces of water, wind and UV rays. Microplastics are ubiquitous in our environment now and are found virtually everywhere on Earth, from the deepest trenches of the ocean, to the highest mountains, to the air and water we take into our bodies. In the top foot of seawater alone, it’s estimated that between 82 and 358 trillion plastic particles (about 2.4 to 10.8 billion pounds) are floating.
Microplastics are particularly an issue in oceans, where they degrade more easily and are readily ingested by wildlife — so when plastics enter the ocean, they will eventually shed microplastics as they break down. Because these tiny plastic fragments aren’t filtered out by current sewage technology, removing plastic from the ocean (and preventing it from entering in the first place) is crucial to mitigating the impact of microplastics on marine environments.
Sand contaminated with microplastics on a beach in Thailand. pcess609 / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Threats to Marine Life and Ecosystems
A discarded fishing net on a coral reef in the Philippines. Francesco Ricciardi / iStock / Getty Images Plus
It’s not hard to imagine that millions of pieces of plastic would disrupt natural ecosystems, fundamentally changing their makeup and impacting the species that depend upon them. In all, plastic kills more than 100 million ocean animals per year. Marine life gets entangled in ghost fishing gear like abandoned nets, or other plastic items like grocery bags and six-pack rings. They ingest it too — almost all seabirds on Earth have eaten plastic, as well as half of sea turtles. Filling their stomachs with debris can cause these animals to die of starvation or suffer from internal injuries. Furthermore, debris in these patches can even transport species to other locations — including crabs, algae and barnacles that attach to the plastic — and might become invasive when they settle in new areas.
A gull picks up trash that washed up on the bank of the San Gabriel River by the Pacific Ocean, in Seal Beach, California on Dec. 13, 2022. Mark Rightmire / MediaNews Group / Orange County Register via Getty Images
Economic Impacts
Along with their environmental toll, ocean plastics also pose a threat to global economics. It makes ecosystems less resilient by altering biodiversity and other conditions, especially when connected with other stressors like ocean acidification and rising temperatures. Thus, plastic diminishes the ability of marine ecosystems to provide ecosystem services — that is, the beneficial services that ecosystems provide us with, such as carbon storage and climate regulation, recreational opportunities/tourism, waste detoxification, pest and disease control and a source of food for humans. When an ocean is functioning normally, it provides us with these positive (and profitable) ecological functions. It’s estimated that in 2011, marine ecosystem services created value for society of about $49.7 trillion a year — but due to marine plastic, there has been a 1-5% decline in overall ecosystem services, which equates to about $500 billion to $2,500 billion in value lost.
Scallops at an aquaculture farm in Tongoy Bay, Chile. Maria Valladares / NOAA OAR 2014 Photo Contest
Plastic pollution on the beach of Labuan Bajo, a small fishing town in Indonesia. Tristan Savatier / Moment / Getty Images
Tourism/recreation is another huge industry that depends on thriving marine ecosystems. Not only does environmental and wildlife tourism provide opportunities for enjoyment and fulfillment all over the globe, but it is also a multi-billion dollar sector that many economies depend on. Losing species that rely on impacted marine environments could mean fewer opportunities for enjoyment, and thus a loss of that crucial income. Species also have cultural value to humans; there is evidence that humans psychologically benefit from merely knowing that marine animals exist in their lives and will continue to live there.
Current Ocean Cleanup Technology
Amidst this gargantuan influx of ocean plastic, new technological innovations have begun targeting marine waste and finding effective ways to both remove it from natural environments and prevent it from ending up there in the first place.
Seabin V5
Seabin V5, launched in Australia in 2015, has set an ambitious target to clean 100 cities of marine debris by 2050. This innovative solution is primarily designed to operate in calm water, like harbors and marinas. As the name implies, the Seabin functions as a floating receptacle, collecting litter floating on the water’s surface as well as substances like oil, fuel and detergents. The device operates akin to a vacuum, drawing in water and catching waste materials, including microplastics. The collected waste is then retained, while the water is filtered and then sent back into the ocean. The potential of Seabin to address plastic pollution in still water is substantial, with projections anticipating the capture of about 90,000 plastic bags per year.
FRED
Developed by the San Diego-based nonprofit Clear Blue Sea, FRED (which stands for Floating Robot Eliminating Debris) emerged through a collaborative effort with high school and college interns and volunteers. The robot has a more specific focus than some other cleanup technologies, targeting mainly plastics prone to disintegrating into microplastics. Operating like a vacuum, FRED can pick up debris from 3cm to 2ft in size, using its two front flaps to direct debris onto a conveyor belt, which moves them into a collection basket. It also has additional front flaps to collect larger pieces of trash as well. Because the robot runs on renewable energy, it’s not at all dependent on fossil fuels. The machine’s slow pace, coupled with sophisticated sensors, effectively prevents marine life from entering and helps it function as a water quality monitor as well. FRED generates underwater maps too, which can help predict the impacts of climate change or runoff from pollution. While it’s a smaller operation, its holistic design that addresses both waste collection and water monitoring is one with great promise.
Wasser 3.0
Hailing from Germany, Wasser 3.0 is tackling microplastic pollution in waterways. The main component is a vortex system that swirls a non-toxic compound composed of hybrid silica gels, drawing in microplastics and causing them to clump into “popcorn-like” agglomerates that float to water’s surface, which can then be easily removed. The process has the potential to serve as a microplastic-removal tool in sewage systems — which currently are unable to filter out microplastics — and is already being used at a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Landau-Mörlheim, Germany, as well as a paper processing facility.
The Ocean Cleanup
Perhaps the most prominent and well-known system in the realm of ocean cleanup is led by The Ocean Cleanup (TOC), a Dutch nonprofit organization founded in 2013 by 18-year-old Boyan Slat. Slat was inspired to start the initiative after taking a family scuba diving trip to Greece at the age of 16, where he was dismayed to see more plastic bags than fish in the water. Backed by funding from Coca-Cola and other large corporations, The Ocean Cleanup has a mission to eliminate 90% of floating plastic in the oceans by 2040.
The Interceptor, an automated, solar-powered trash collection device at the mouth of Ballona Creek in Los Angeles, California on Dec. 12, 2022. Citizen of the Planet / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
TOC’s system employs a four-step process in collecting waste: target, capture, extract and recycle. Cameras first scan the surface of the water to find plastic hotspots and determine where the cleanup should target, also using computational modeling to predict where plastic hotspots will be based on water currents. Then, plastic is captured in the retention zone using their “Interceptor vessels.” Two boats pull a large U-shaped barrier through the water that goes about 3 meters below the surface, collecting the trash as it moves. The boats come together once a week to close the gap, and the retention zone is taken onboard and emptied onto the vessel. The collected waste is then separated into different recycling streams to send to shore.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is TOC’s first target. They began collecting plastic there in 2019, and have been removing it consistently since 2021. Thousands of tons have been collected by now, with around 245,680 kg of trash removed so far. TOC hopes to remove 1% of the patch by the end of 2023. Initially, the organization employed System 001, which proved to be ineffective. Now, however, they’re using System 002 while developing System 03, which will be a whopping 2,400 meters wide, three times larger than System 002, thereby reducing the number of units needed to clean up the patch.
In Rivers
A man rows a boat on the Siak River which is poluted by plastic waste in Pekanbaru, Riau Province, Indonesia on Dec. 17, 2020. Afrianto Silalahi / NurPhoto
Plastic that’s already in the ocean isn’t the only waste of importance. A huge amount of plastic reaches our oceans via rivers, so effective cleanup methods must also target these arteries to prevent waste from reaching marine environments in the first place. More than 1,000 rivers are responsible for 80% of ocean plastic, according to research conducted by The Ocean Cleanup in 2021. Along with cleaning up the GPGP, TOC’s approach also includes intercepting plastic from 1,000 rivers worldwide — currently, they are doing so at 11 rivers in Vietnam, Indonesia, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Malaysia — which they believe could halt 80% of river-based plastic from reaching oceans. They use AI-powered cameras to figure out contributing factors like depth, width and flow speed of the debris, and use their Interceptor vessels to collect waste at the mouth of these rivers and ferry it to waste management facilities.
Mr. Trash Wheel
Who knew a trash collector could be a tourist attraction? Mr. Trash Wheel — created by Clearwater Mills, LLC — resides in the Baltimore Harbor, catching ocean-bound plastic and entertaining visitors with his goofy, giant googly-eyes. The contraption uses two-foot-deep containment booms to collect trash flowing down the river. Water currents power the wheel — or solar power, when the currents aren’t strong enough — which rakes trash and lifts it out of the water and onto a conveyor belt. The trash then falls into a dumpster on another floating barge, which transports it away to be incinerated for electricity. Four such wheels exist across the harbor, known as the “Trash Wheel Family,” which has collected 2,362.23 tons of trash.
This barrier isn’t made of hard materials like many other cleanup systems — instead, it’s made of air. A Dutch startup company created this barrier for the Amsterdam canals to capture plastic through the whole width and depth of a river. The system’s successes include its lack of interference with the river’s regular functions — like ship use and fish passage — and its around-the-clock operation. A perforated tube runs along the bottom of the river and pushes out air at an angle, creating a “screen” of bubbles that blocks plastics and directs them towards the surface of the water into the catchment system. The group expects 86-90% of plastic to be removed in the Oude Rijn in Katwijk, Netherlands via this system.
WasteShark
Inspired by the whale shark, the WasteShark was created in 2018 by RanMarine Technology to clean up waterways, harbors, ponds and lakes, and was recently deployed in New York City’s Hudson River. Like the whale shark — which filters water through its body to ingest krill and plankton — the WasteShark filters water through it to catch plastic waste, as well as algae and other biomass. This small, boat-like drone floats along the water’s surface to collect debris to be taken to land and disposed of, using sensors to avoid obstacles. It also collects information on the water it traverses, like salinity and pH levels.
There has been controversy over whether ocean cleanup technologies are more harmful than helpful, and whether they’re as effective as they’ve claimed to be. In 2022, a video from The Ocean Cleanup of waste aboard one of their vessels prompted calls that the trash was too clean to have come from the ocean, and perhaps was staged, which the organization denies.
There have also been questions of whether their methods themselves are successful. System 001 was ineffective, and System 001B would have required 150 units to effectively clear the GPGP. System 002 has been more successful, but very expensive — although TOC says it will solve some of the issues in earlier systems, such as “overtopping,” by which plastic rode in waves over the top of the barriers.
Habitat Destruction and Bycatch
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch and other gyres aren’t just home to plastic, but also to other floating marine life that have made their home there, or have otherwise gotten caught up in this new ecosystem. Many of these systems — especially those that collect plastic in net-like structures — have the potential to be harmful in the way that trawl fishing is, which catches fish indiscriminately, although these nets are often more shallow and move slowly so the creatures can escape. Along with fish, sharks, and turtles, plastic-catching nets also disturb the neuston: a community of organisms including crabs, sea anemones, insects, snails, worms, nudibranchs and other small creatures that float on the surface of the ocean. The neuston is an important food source for larger species, and given the way it interacts with ocean currents, it often ends up where ocean plastic accumulates.
A baby green sea turtle swims at the surface of the Pacific Ocean in Malaysia. Reinhard Dirscherl / ullstein bild via Getty Images
The Ocean Cleanup in particular has come under fire for potential harm to ecosystems. Their systems have caught fish, small sharks, mollusks, and sea turtles accidentally, although the organization does maintain that by weight, it’s a very small amount compared to the plastic. In 40 tons of plastic, 141 kg of biological matter was caught, or 3.6g for every 1,000g of plastic collected. They also claim that fish can escape their catch system through hatches, and they have breathing ports for animals, as well as lights, acoustics and cameras to detect and deter species. The TOC has begun addressing their impact on the neuston as well, and maintains that preliminary data is promising, finding only one type of neustonic organism (Velella velella) had been caught. Seabin has also been criticized for its impact on marine life. A 2022 study found that for every 3.6 pieces of litter captured, so was one marine animal. When examined in a tidal marina, Seabin captured 58 items of litter a day on average, as well as 13 marine organisms, 50% of which were dead upon retrieval.
Energy Use
Many cleanup methods are powered by renewables, but not all of them, begging the question of whether these cleanups are causing greater harm to the climate while they remove trash. Ocean Cleanup ships, for example, are powered by fossil fuels and emit 660 tons of CO2 per month — although the group says that they will offset all emissions from System 002, as they have with 001. However, the legitimacy and ethicality of carbon offsets at large has been hotly debated.
Non-Surface Plastic and Prominence of Microplastics
Most cleanup systems only reach a few feet below the ocean’s surface, but many macroplastics do fall to the ocean floor and are thus missed in cleanup efforts. At such a depth, however, plastics are more likely to become a part of the ecosystem, so a disturbance would be more harmful to wildlife. Similarly, not all cleanup systems capture microplastics, which we know are an extremely significant source of harm in marine environments. During the first 5 years after being released into the ocean, 77% of floating plastic is found close to the shore where it erodes faster into microplastics. There is an argument to be made that beach cleanups and efforts closer to land would be more productive at ridding the ocean of microplastics — or dealing with plastic at the source by preventing its introduction into waterways at the outset. Some argue that focusing so heavily on ocean cleanup diverts attention away from addressing the creation and poor disposal of plastics in the first place.
What Action Can We Take?
Reduce Single-Use Plastics
A volunteer collects plastic waste on the shore of Freedom Island on International Coastal Cleanup Day in Las Pinas, Metro Manila, Philippines on Sept. 15, 2023. Ezra Acayan / Getty Images
At our current rate of consumption — and as the global population expands and becomes more affluent — plastic use is expected to triple by 2060, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Projects. To eliminate plastic waste from oceans, we must combat the source rather than the symptom. Even in the absence of systemic changes that limit consumption of single-use plastics worldwide, we can make the choice for ourselves to cut it out of our lives. Think of major sources of plastic in your life (especially single-use items), and consider ways you can replace them with reusables. Bring your own bags to the grocery store, carry a reusable coffee cup, ditch plastic water bottles entirely. Think further, too — what beauty products can you replace with sustainable alternatives? What kitchen items? How can you grocery shop in a way that reduces plastic? These are all questions we can answer for ourselves.
Recycle Correctly
Recycling is, of course, one solution to plastic waste by diverting it towards reuse. However, only 9% of plastic waste ultimately gets recycled, and even the plastic that does make it into the recycling bin doesn’t always get recycled in the end. With the acknowledgment that recycling is an inadequate complete solution — and can be used as a scapegoat to justify our overconsumption of resources — it’s a widely available resource and one we should take advantage of. First of all, learn how to recycle correctly. There are no universal rules for what should go in a recycling bin — it varies widely by municipality, which means you need to research how you’re supposed to do it for the specific recycling system you utilize. It’s also important to avoid “aspirational” recycling — that is, recycling things that you think (or hope) can be recycled — which can lead to even more waste at recycling centers.
As is the case with many environmental issues, legislation can be a major tool by which ocean-bound plastic can be controlled. The 2021 Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act has been introduced as an amendment to the Solid Waste Disposal Act, and aims to reduce the production of some single-use plastics — including packaging — and have producers on the hook for their disposal. Many places — including several U.S. states — are banning plastic bags, and some state-level initiatives want to create extended producer responsibility legislation. Legislation is an important tool for change. Vote for people who support these causes. Look into what they’ve voted for and against in the past, and advocate for the adoption of policies that limit plastic waste.
Participate in Cleanups
The Young European Ambassadors from the Western Balkans participate with other volunteers in the EU Beach Cleanup in Durres, Albania on Sept. 18, 2021. WeBalkans EU / CC BY 2.0
Cleaning up plastic waste doesn’t only have to happen in faraway gyres or major rivers to make a difference. Look into cleanups in your community hosted by local environmental organizations or volunteer groups. Larger organizations also host large-scale coastline cleanups, like the International Coastal Cleanup with the Ocean Conservancy, Oceana, 5 Gyres (which operates in 66 countries), the Pacific Beach Coalition and the Surfrider Foundation. Or, get out there yourself and clean up! Organize a cleanup if there isn’t one, utilizing your network through school, work or other organizations that you’re a part of.
Support Organizations
Whether it’s volunteering your time, donating money or sharing information about their efforts on your social media feed, support organizations that are combating ocean-bound plastic waste, like the Plastic Pollution Coalition and the Plastic Soup Foundation. Larger environmental organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund have considerable influence and lobby for just environmental policies too.
Takeaway
Technological solutions to our plastic problems do exist, although they don’t come without their own issues. Ultimately, we should think about plastic pollution from all ends: reducing our consumption to begin with, preventing waste from entering waterways, and removing it when it does in a way that doesn’t impact ecosystems. Like many environmental issues, cleaning up ocean plastic is a wide-reaching one with impacts across many different sectors including human health, ecosystem stability and industry. Successful cleanup systems will have to reflect the complicated nature of the enterprise, taking all of these different concerns into account.
