Gibraltar dumping all of its raw sewage into Mediterranean

Raw sewage from nearly 40,000 people and businesses is being pumped straight into the sea because the British overseas territory of Gibraltar does not have, and has never had, a wastewater treatment plant.

For decades, untreated sewage has poured into the Mediterranean from the southern tip of the peninsula at Europa Point, where the government of Gibraltar says there are “high levels of natural dispersion”.

The area is supposed to be protected for wildlife but often there are “wet wipes and plastic pollution entangled in algae and all over the rocks”, said Lewis Stagnetto, of the Nautilus Project, a local environmental charity.

How can we reduce the impact of plastic on the environment?

Solutions for plastic pollution. From creating cleaner plastics to the clean-up after the largest plastic ocean spill on record.

To listen to the podcast, click on the link below, or search on your podcast app for BBC Inside Science, How can we reduce the impact of plastic on the environment?

 

Only 0.5% of 90,000 oil slicks reported over five-year period, analysis finds

Just 474 out of more than 90,000 oil slicks from ships around the world were reported to authorities over a five-year period, it can be revealed, and barely any resulted in any punishment or sanctions. To read the full article, click the link below.

The lasting toxic legacy of cargo ship disaster revealed, for BBC online and TV news

Four years after a stricken cargo ship caused the largest plastic spill ever recorded, volunteers on Sri Lanka’s beaches are still sifting kilograms of tiny, toxic plastic pellets from the sand. 

Scientists are now flagging fears the damage to the environment could be much more enduring than previously thought.

So far, hundreds of millions of nurdles may have been cleared away – but the remaining, lentil-sized microplastic granules have become increasingly difficult to find as they disappear deeper into the sand.

Worse, those pieces of plastic now appear to be becoming even more toxic, new research suggests.

To read the full article and watch the TV report, click the links below.

Sri Lanka: The X Press Pearl disaster podcast

In May 2021, Sri Lanka suffered one of the worst environmental disasters in its history when a massive container ship, the X-Press Pearl, caught fire and sank off its coast. As it went down it released tonnes of toxic chemicals, metal waste, and microplastics into the sea— the UN called it the largest plastic spill ever recorded. Four years on Watershed and the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network investigates how the disaster is still having an impact on coastal communities.

To listen to the podcast, click the link below, or search for Sri Lanka the X Press Pearl Disaster on your podcast app.

BBC From Our Own Correspondent

Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world, presented by Kate Adie.

Malaysia has become a global hub for recycling, importing an estimated five million tonnes of plastic each year – but does it really make a difference? Leana Hosea went to find out what happens to the world’s waste once it arrives.

Click on the link below to listen back to the podcast. Our report features 18 minutes into the programme.

Otters, porpoises, birds among UK wildlife carrying toxic ‘forever chemicals’, analysis shows

Dolphins, otters, porpoises, fish and birds across the UK have been found to have toxic “forever chemicals” in their tissue and organs, analysis of official data has revealed. Watershed Investigations, the Marine Conservation Society and the Guardian obtained official data on more than 1,000 animals to reveal widespread contamination by a range of PFAS, particularly PFOS and PFOA, which have been studied the longest and found to be toxic, and are now banned. However, there are more than 10,000 types of PFAS and little is known about the toxic effects of most of them.

Watershed has mapped more than 1,000 animals found to be contaminated with PFAS.

Sri Lanka to probe ‘corruption’ in handling of 2021 cargo ship disaster

Sri Lanka’s new government, led by left-leaning President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, will launch a fresh investigation into the handling of the MV X-Press Pearl cargo ship disaster that devastated marine life along swaths of the island nation’s coastline three years ago, a senior minister has told Al Jazeera.

The announcement came amid allegations of corruption, delay tactics and mismanagement in dealing with the aftermath of the disaster, and a lack of compensation for the affected fishermen.

Click on the link below to read the full article.

THE WATERSHED POLLUTION MAP

Wondering what’s in your water? Now you can find out with Watershed’s new, first-of-its-kind Pollution Map.

As part of our investigations, we collect a lot of data from field research, from FOI/EIRs and from available official sources. We wanted to collate it, sort it and make it easily accessible so that as many people as possible can see the wide range of pollution and other environmental pressures taking place in their backyards, so they can better understand the challenges and perhaps even take steps to help improve it.

It contains more than 120 datasets, ranging from river health, bathing water health, to historic landfill sites, sewage dumping, intensive farming, heavy industry and a lot more. While it’s not going to show you any direct causation between a potential polluter and failing water body, it’s fascinating to see what our rivers, seas, wildlife and habitats are dealing with and it begs further investigation.

As journalists, the temptation is to hoard information until you’re ready to break a big story but nature in the UK is in crisis so we decided to to arm as many people as possible — other journalists, campaigners, communities, scientists, policymakers, regulators, lawyers and more — with as much open source data as we can.

We’ll keep adding to the map and we’ll update existing datasets once a year, where updates are available. If you have any ideas about datasets we should add, please get in touch and let us know how we can access them.

Watershed gains nothing from releasing this map. Of course it will attract traffic to our website but that is not among our priorities. We remain committed to high quality environmental investigative journalism for existing mainstream media outlets.

If you use data from the map, we would be grateful if you could mention it somewhere in your work, so we can track the impact it is having and know it was worth all the effort, but that of course is not obligatory and the main thing is that it is used and it is helpful.

Knowledge is power but shared knowledge is more powerful. Please share the map far and wide.

CLICK HERE TO LAUNCH THE WATERSHED POLLUTION MAP!

Here’s a short video showing you how to use it:

CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO LAUNCH THE POLLUTION MAP

(Best viewed on a large screen.)

Watershed pollution map

Cancer-causing PCB chemicals still being produced despite 40-year-old ban

Industry could be producing more cancer-causing PCB chemicals today than at any other point in history, despite their production having been banned more than 40 years ago. Research seen by the Guardian and Watershed Investigations shows that PCBs are being produced as byproducts in chemical reactions, which means small proportions of them are present in many chemicals used today.