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A Baby Humpback Whale Plays Near the Surface in Blue Water

New report by Deloitte and WDC does a deep dive into the opportunities for businesses in embracing oceanic biodiversity

Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) and Deloitte have released a new report that shines a...
Nets set in Norway to catch minke whales

Minke whale dies before cruel hearing experiments begin

Nets set in Norway to catch minke whales A cruel and pointless experiment to test...
WDC joins local protesters on anti whaling march in Iceland

Pressure mounts in Iceland as latest survey shows majority of local people want whale hunting to end

WDC joins local protesters on anti whaling march in Iceland For the first time, those...

New government marine wildlife code to help reduce dolphin disturbance

The launch today by UK Government of new guidance on how to act responsibly around...

New study suggests amount of microplastic in oceans could be much higher

A new global map of aquatic plastic pollution has revealed that rivers in the north west of the UK have the highest microplastic pollution discovered so far anywhere in the world.

Scientists from the University of Manchester took samples from 40 sites across the region with over 500,000 microplastic particles discovered in the River Tame alone.

Microplastics are small pieces of plastic less than 5mm in diameter and include items such as microbeads from washing products (now banned in the UK) and microfibres from clothing. During heavy flooding, the study discovered that 70% of the microplastics, consisting of over 40 billion particles, were washed into the ocean.

The findings, published in Nature Geoscience, suggest that the current estimate for the amount of microplastic pollution in the ocean (five trillion pieces) could in fact be significantly underestimating the true figure.

Once in the ocean, microplastics can end up in the food chain when they are consumed by marine life.

Find out more about why plastic is NotWhaleFood and how you can help.

About George Berry

George is a member of WDC's Communications team and website coordinator.