Recently, we saw the Plastiki – a sailboat made out of 12,500 plastic bottles – complete its 15,000 km journey from San Francisco to Sydney. The publicity surrounding this event has been used to highlight the perils facing the oceans and one of them is plastic waste.

Last week President Obama and his administration outlined changes that would greatly alter the fuel economy and emissions standards of the auto industry. Not only would these changes reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions emitted into the air by cars, but they would also save the average car buyer thousands of dollars in fuel.

So far both environmental organizations and lobby groups seem to be on board for the car fuel economy changes.

From 1998 to 2005 scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, an organization whose mission is to provide scientific information to describe the earth, studied over 1000 fish from 291 streams across the nation, and what they found in regards to high mercury levels was pretty astounding.

Every fish that was sampled had some of the toxic mercury substance in it, and that raises concern over the rising amount of pollution in water across the country.

Along with the U.S., China is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world. In 2006 the World Bank, which offers financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world, declared that 16 out of 20 of the world’s most polluted cities are in China.

So last Friday China announced that it is considering collecting environmental taxes from polluting companies.

Using data from river groups, local governments and environmental organizations, American Rivers, the top conservation organization in the U.S. that supports healthy rivers, has determined the 10 most endangered rivers in the nation.

These endangered rivers are not just threatened by water pollution, but also by dams, industries, development, or all three.

The EPA has been in a lot of trouble this past year, as it has been sued for not regulating greenhouse gas emissions and for violating the Clean Water Act of 1972.

But now the agency is lowering the limit of lead that will be allowed in the air by 90%, all in an effort to protect children from health risks of airborne lead…

Five environmental groups in Florida, the Florida Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, the Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida and the St. Johns Riverkeeper, sued the EPA last Thursday because they say the federal government has violated the Clean Water Act of 1972.

These groups claim that farm and urban runoff, such as animal waste and fertilizers, are polluting Florida’s waterways…

There are over 10,000 different kinds of plastic throughout the world, but only 5% of that plastic is recycled. The plastic that isn’t recycled is then thrown into our overcrowded landfills, where it can take up to 700 years to decompose and break down.

So besides giving your plastic to a recycling center or to a company like TerraCycle, you can prevent land pollution by reusing your bottles in creative and fun ways…

According to the EPA, Americans discard about 2 million pounds of electronic waste (e-waste) every year, but that’s nothing compared to the 50 million pounds that are produced by the entire world.

To battle the e-waste problem, the U.S. Postal Service is working with recycling company Clover Technologies Group to develop a free national collection program for small electronics…

I search through various news sources every day to bring readers the latest news pertaining to the environment. And as much as I try to be unbiased or non-judgmental, I just couldn’t believe it when I saw the Yahoo! News headline ‘Environmentally Friendly Bombs Planned.’

After the initial shock of the headline, I decided to read the article first to try and understand the sense in using eco-friendly bombs that would destroy things over toxic bombs that would destroy things…