Pollution Stories

  • World leaders aim to take major step toward tackling plastic pollution

    May 24, 2023

    Later this month, WWF will join world leaders and other key stakeholders in Paris, France, for the second of five United Nations-hosted meetings to negotiate the treaty. This meeting will be the first time negotiators start mapping out the basis for the treaty’s framework before the first draft is started later this year.

    Aerial view of plastics clogging a river between homes in Indonesia
  • WWF’s Alexis Will teaches Alaska’s kindergartners about seabirds—and saving our oceans

    May 09, 2023

    For more than a decade, the Sitka Sound Science Center’s Scientists in the School program has exposed students in every classroom at every grade level to a wide variety of scientific disciplines, using hands-on, engaging classroom and field experiences. 

    A child dresses up as a seabird wearing a bunch of feathers
  • Here's how satellite data is helping to protect whales

    WWF Magazine: Summer 2023
    Despite improved policies to protect these animals in recent decades, whales increasingly face warmer waters and the impacts of global trade.
    A baby humpback whale glides along its mother's back underwater
  • How ocean warming is impacting sea stars

    WWF Magazine: Summer 2023
    They slide across the ocean floor using thousands of tiny tubelike projections attached to their arms.
    A red sea star on green vegetation
  • How reframing recycling systems can protect people and the planet

    November 15, 2022

    Right now, the burden falls on individuals to sort household waste for recycling and on communities to fund and operate recycling programs. Under a new program, this responsibility is transferred to the companies that use these materials for their products and packaging.

    Two people stand on an elevated walkway overlooking a recycling plant
  • Whales on the move

    July 05, 2022

    The growing dangers whales face worldwide along their epic migrations are signs of an ocean in peril, and reveal how these waters connect us all.

    A baby humpback whale glides along its mother's back underwater
  • Turning the tide on plastic waste management

    June 08, 2022

    We need policymakers and business leaders to take game-changing actions to help us transition from our current linear, “take-make-waste" relationship with plastic to a circular one.

    A plastic bottle on a pebble beach sits in the foreground with a sillouhette of a man in the background
  • Protecting my Arctic home

    September 16, 2021

    Alexandria Abuzanuq Ivanoff, who is from Unalakleet, Alaska, a small hunting and fishing community on the northwest coast, discusses how warming waters and increased shipping could impact Indigenous peoples and wildlife. 

     

    Allie Ivanoff looks straight at the camera in a large parka in the snow
  • 3 ways the US can act on the plastic waste crisis and protect our oceans

    An exorbitant amount of plastic waste continues to plague our oceans, threatening marine life and the people who depend on these waters for their livelihoods. Despite the dire scope of this crisis, the growing momentum to address it is promising.

    Jellyfish (Catostylus sp.) swims beneath a slick of plastic debris. Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka.
  • Women Leading the Plastic Revolution

    March 08, 2021

    WWF invited some of the women leading the charge against plastic pollution to share their thoughts on the significance of the plastic waste crisis being felt in all corners of the planet.

    Women and a man search through seaweed for microplastics on a beach on a sunny day
  • Whales and the plastics problem

    February 18, 2021

    Protecting whales is crucial to protecting healthy oceans for all of us. Yet even these ocean giants are being impacted by the "deadliest predator in the sea": plastic pollution.

    A sperm whale floats toward the surface of the ocean while a white plastic bag floats just below
  • Ghost fishing gear

    October 20, 2020

    Ghost fishing gear includes any abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear. It is the deadliest form of marine plastic debris and often goes unseen. Learn more about how you can help stop this silent killer and protect the health of our ocean its inhabitants.

    A large seal on the beach with its neck caught in abandoned fishing gear
  • How cities around the world are working toward a greener future

    WWF Magazine: Summer 2020
    Cities generate 70% of global carbon emissions. But around the world, cities are making changes to ensure a greener future.
    Lund
  • This simple bottled water alternative is a no-brainer

    WWF Magazine: Spring 2020
    Since less than 10% of plastic waste gets recycled in the US, most of those water bottles wind up in dumps, where they won’t break down for hundreds of years. Here's how to reduce your plastic waste.
    Reusing bottle
  • What we learned about coral reefs in 2019

    January 07, 2020

    While most of what we learned about coral reefs in 2019 is grim, there's still hope. In this new decade, we can do quite a bit to protect coral reefs and the wildlife and people that depend on them.

    Gabby Ahmadia, senior marine scientist at WWF, surveys a reef in the Selat Dampier MPA, Raja Ampat, West Papua, Indonesia
  • What do sea turtles eat? Unfortunately, plastic bags.

    Plastic has only been mass-produced since the 1940s, but it’s having a devastating impact on sea turtles. Many of us are doing our part to reduce plastic pollution by recycling and reducing single-use items, but governments must also step up to take accountability and end this pollution epidemic.

    A turtle swims toward a plastic bag
  • Plastic in the ocean

    WWF Magazine: Fall 2019
    The problem of plastic in nature, particularly in our oceans, is a global crisis. Learn what WWF is doing to stop plastics from leaking into our oceans.
    Garbage in ocean
  • A photographer saves a turtle; his photograph may save more

    WWF Magazine: Fall 2019
    It was a clear, calm day at the end of summer.
    Loggerhead turtle trapped in a drifting abandoned net
  • Stemming the tide

    WWF Magazine: Fall 2019
    Lauren Spurrier, vice president for oceans conservation, describes how our seas are transforming in unprecedented, life-altering ways—and lays out how WWF is working to save them for us all.
    Walrus crowded on sea ice
  • Gallery: Art by Mandy Barker

    WWF Magazine: Fall 2019
    Mandy Barker grew up collecting shells and driftwood on the beach near her home on the British coast. Now, she collects plastic.
    SOUP: BURNT
  • How tagging whales can help us understand ocean pollution

    WWF Magazine: Fall 2019
    Microplastics have accumulated abundantly in the Mediterranean. WWF is analyzing traces of plastic we find in whales to understand the strain that rising pollution puts on our oceans and marine life.
    Whale with arrow
  • An uninhabited Australian island littered with plastic

    May 16, 2019

    A tiny, remote island, visited only by nesting turtles and crocs, situated in the middle of nowhere, is now choking with plastic. 

    plastic at Millman RSwwfau12358
  • We’re one step closer to keeping trash and plastic out of our oceans

    October 18, 2018

    Nearly 124,000 WWF activists from 49 states reached out to their member of Congress to support a bipartisan bill to take a stand on ocean plastic, and their impressive efforts paid off.

    humback whale jump
  • LEGO Group builds a more sustainable future

    WWF Magazine: Winter 2018
    These iconic interlocking toys have long since evolved beyond rectangular bricks.
    object lego2 winter2018