Surfrider Foundation

Celebrations in a beachside California city will soon have to take place without an iconic, single-use party favour: balloons.

A volunteer organization that has been cleaning up debris from a cargo ship that lost 109 containers off the B.C. coast last fall says the incident should be a wake-up call to the need for more urgent action.

Investors are forcing the world’s biggest plastic manufacturers to reveal how many harmful plastic pellets they are leaking into rivers, lakes and oceans worldwide.

In the growing war against the environmental impact of plastic, Florida seems to be taking a giant step backwards by pushing legislation that would stop local authorities from banning plastic straws, a move that has, not surprisingly, angered many environmentalists.