We Can Work Together to Halt Misinformation

Over the past few years, misinformation about climate change and our ocean has been spreading across news and social media, and many believe it will only get worse. In my work towards ocean climate solutions, I have seen how misinformation can delay climate action and impact policy decisions that affect our ocean. We need to tackle misinformation to push through vital climate solutions, and we can all be a part of this important work. 

What is misinformation? 

Misinformation is false or incorrect information—essentially, getting the facts wrong—that is spread to the public. Disinformation, a form of misinformation, is false or incorrect information spread deliberately by dishonest actors with the intent to create distrust in the public for their own gain. 

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Misinformation can take the form of disseminating completely false information or sharing only half the story or by conflating unrelated facts that make a story feel true. Misinformation is similar to gossip. It’s sticky. It’s easy to remember. And when it comes to the ocean, it’s often simpler than the truth.

How does misinformation impact our ocean? 

For us at an evidence-based organization, misinformation is very concerning. Ocean systems are dynamic, and it takes an enormous amount of data to understand them. This data can be complex and nuanced, making it difficult to communicate. Organizations like Ocean Conservancy directly study and work with other trusted institutions and agencies to analyze and interpret ocean data to ensure the public and its leaders understand what’s happening in our ocean and what is threatening its health. 

Yet, misinformation can affect our ability to protect the ocean and support our coastal communities. Decision-makers, whether at the local or federal level, need accurate information to make science-based decisions and create policies that will protect marine life and communities. If policymakers, and the people they represent and are accountable to, receive unfounded claims, our leaders may spend unnecessary taxpayer dollars or enact policies that are ineffective or even harmful to protecting the ocean. 

Take, for example, offshore wind. 

Offshore wind is a vital component of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels in order to clean up our air, land and ocean from pollution. It provides jobs and economic growth to coastal communities as well as clean, reliable energy.

Over the past year, anti-offshore wind groups, many of which are funded by fossil fuel interests, have been spreading misinformation about offshore wind. They have made false claims that offshore wind is to blame for recent whale deaths along the East Coast. These claims have been easy to make because offshore wind is a new concept by many who care about the ocean. Yet, there is no scientific evidence linking offshore wind to whale strandings. In fact, increases in whale deaths pre-date offshore wind development in the United States, and researchers have found definitive evidence that vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglement are the top drivers of these tragic strandings.  

This misinformation is distracting from true efforts to protect the ocean and marine life from the long-term consequences of climate change. With smart, science-based policy, we can build offshore wind responsibly—providing for communities while protecting wildlife. And we should continue to research and monitor this clean ocean-energy source to increase our understanding and avoid potential future impacts on marine mammals and other ocean wildlife.

What can I do to combat misinformation?

The good news is, we can fight back against misinformation. We invite you, as an ocean lover, to help us combat misinformation by using your savvy investigation skills to spot false claims and address misinformation. 

1. Be aware that misinformation is out there and growing. Sometimes all it takes is a watchful eye to catch false claims, especially in regard to hot-button issues like climate change and the ocean. In fact, once you start looking for misinformation, you may be surprised by how much is out there.
2. Read beyond the headline. Headlines are intended to pull in the reader, and they often do this by making a far-reaching claim meant to trigger an emotional response. But to really understand, you may need more details, which will only be found in the body of the article. Note that writers often will include the unfounded claims at the beginning of an article and only balance it out with what science actually tells us at the very end.
3. Look at the source of the information you are reading. When you see a startling negative claim about the ocean, look closely at who is making the claim. Does the person or group have a vested interest in hurting the public’s trust? Does the person or group have a trusted voice on the topic? Is the claim backed by data that was gathered with scientific rigor? If the source is questionable, it may be misinformation.
4. Verify the claim. If a claim about the ocean is made by a person or group you do not know, confirm it is true with a trusted organization. Check here on the Ocean Conservancy blog for information or sign up for updates, or look to these other trusted organizations that bring evidence-based science to policy such as the Marine Mammal Commission, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Natural Resources Defense Council and National Wildlife Federation.
5. Do not share the misinformation, and help others know it’s false as well. The biggest way you can fight back against ocean misinformation is to stop it in its tracks. If you find misinformation, do not share it. If you are confident enough to speak out about it, remember that correcting people is delicate. Try to meet people on common ground, such as our collective desire to protect the ocean, and offer trusted resources where they can learn more—like Ocean Conservancy.

If you want more resources on offshore wind in the United States, visit Ocean Conservancy’s clean ocean-energy hub today.

The post We Can Work Together to Halt Misinformation appeared first on Ocean Conservancy.

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Plastic Bottles & Lids Among Top 10 Most Commonly Found Items at Cleanups

This blog was written by Hannah De Frond. Hannah works with Ocean Conservancy and the University of Toronto Trash Team to manage the International Trash Trap Network (ITTN), a global network of local groups using trash traps to increase cleanup efforts, engage communities and inform upstream solutions. 

The use of single-use plastics has grown significantly over the last few decades. Many of the plastics thrown away daily—such as plastic packaging, takeout cups, container lids, plastic bottles and grocery bags—are used just once before they are discarded.

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Incredibly, 80% of global marine litter items are made of plastics, primarily food and beverage items such as plastic bottles, bottle caps and lids. These items are also among the top 10 items most commonly collected by Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup® (ICC) volunteers around the world. So, what is it about plastic bottles, caps and lids that makes them so likely to enter the environment, and what can we do to prevent them from polluting our ocean?

Plastic bottles

Plastic bottles are the third most common type of plastic pollution collected throughout the nearly 40-year history of the ICC. From 1986-2023, ICC volunteers removed a staggering 24.3 million plastic bottles from coastlines around the world.

Ocean Conservancy estimates that 127 billion plastic bottles are used in the United States each year; due to their widespread use, they have become a major contributor to environmental pollution. Whole plastic bottles have even been found in the stomachs of an albatross and a sperm whale! As with all plastics, in the environment plastic bottles break up into microplastics that pose a threat to wildlife and potentially to human health as well. Most plastic bottles are made of a type of plastic called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Though this material on its own is widely recyclable, many PET bottle designs use colored plastics and labels that can prevent them from being sorted or recycled correctly. 

How can we tackle plastic bottle pollution?

Refillable beverage containers help reduce our reliance on single-use plastic bottles when we use them to transport tap water, fountain sodas, teas or  other beverages. This alleviates the need for single-use beverage bottles each time a refillable container is used and eliminates the possibility that the plastic bottle might go to landfill or be leaked into the environment as pollution.

Policies such as extended producer responsibility (making producers responsible for the waste generated by the use of their plastic products) and deposit-return systems (also known as “bottle bills”) can encourage the redesign and reuse of plastic bottles, while holding the producers of plastic bottles accountable to help pay for the full lifecycle of their materials.

Plastic bottle caps

Along with plastic bottles come plastic bottle caps. When bottle caps are thrown into recycling bins separately from bottles, they are too small to be properly sorted at recycling facilities and instead often end up getting sent to landfill. Bottle caps that end up in the environment can have a considerable impact on marine life. Ocean Conservancy has identified plastic bottle caps as one of the top five deadliest forms of marine pollutionto large species such as seabirds, sea turtles and marine mammals, largely due to the harms of ingesting them. Plastic bottle caps can also generate microplastics when they degrade in the environment, but also from the twisting action used to remove a cap from its plastic ring. When bottles are repeatedly opened and closed from drinking, it potentially increases human exposure to microplastics.

How can we tackle plastic bottle cap pollution?

As with plastic bottles, switching to reusable and refillable beverage containers will reduce the amount of plastic bottle caps that are used and ultimately thrown away. When single-use plastic bottles and caps are used, to ensure that both the plastic bottles and caps get recycled the caps must be screwed back on before they are disposed of for recycling. Policy measures can encourage this behaviour: For example, in Europe it is now legally required for all caps on plastic bottles to be attached or tethered to the bottles. Drinking from bottles with the caps still attached has required some getting used to for consumers, but this subtle change is significantly improving bottle cap recyclability. 

Plastic lids

Plastic lids like the ones that come with a cup of coffee, on a fountain beverage or on top of a yogurt container are some of the most commonly found single-use plastic items found on global beaches and waterways. Because of their size, plastic lids are too small or narrow for recycling sorting machines to manage. This means that instead, plastic lids often end up in landfills or burned in incinerators. In fact, plastic lids are the ninth most common type of plastic pollution collected in the history of Ocean Conservancy’s ICC. From 1986-2023, ICC volunteers have encountered and cleaned up more than 7.3 million plastic lids around the world. The United States alone uses more than 60 billion single-use plastic lids each year. That is enough for every adult in the United States to have a beverage with a plastic lid every day for eight straight months each year.

How can we tackle plastic lid pollution?

As with plastic bottles, the need for many plastic lids can be eliminated through investments in reuse or encouraging behavior changes to skip the lid or dispose of them properly. The most effective solution for lids is to transition to reusable cups and lids. Replacing one disposable coffee cup and lid every day for a year with a reusable mug would result in about 15 pounds of plastic waste prevented per person. Just imagine: If 100 million people did this—just under half of all adults in the United States—it would result in roughly 1.5 billion pounds of plastic debris prevented each year.

To reduce the impacts of plastic bottles, bottle caps, lids and other single-use plastics on our ocean we need to handle them better on land. We need to reduce the sheer volume of plastics produced and used, while holding plastic producers responsible for the harmful waste they have generated and continue to pump into the environment. Taking individual action and supporting local and national policies for the reduction, reuse, recycling and redesign of single-use plastic food and beverage items can help to keep our ocean plastic free. 

To learn more about the most common types of plastic pollution entering our ocean and what you can do to help, check out our reports on charting a course to plastic-free beaches.

The post Plastic Bottles & Lids Among Top 10 Most Commonly Found Items at Cleanups appeared first on Ocean Conservancy.

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