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Sustainability

Planet

Easy (and free!) ways to save the ocean

The ocean is the heart of our planet. It needs our help to be healthy.

Ocean Wise

Volunteers at a local shoreline cleanup

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The ocean covers over 71% of the Earth’s surface and serves as our planet’s heart. Ocean currents circulate vital heat, moisture, and nutrients around the globe to influence and regulate our climate, similar to the human circulatory system. Cool, right?

Our ocean systems provide us with everything from fresh oxygen to fresh food. We need it to survive and thrive—and when the ocean struggles to function healthfully, the whole world is affected.

Pollution, overfishing, and climate change are the three biggest challenges preventing the ocean from doing its job, and it needs our help now more than ever. Humans created the problem; now humans are responsible for solving it.

#BeOceanWise is a global rallying cry to do what you can for the ocean, because we need the ocean and the ocean needs us. If you’re wondering how—or if—you can make a difference, the answer is a resounding YES. There are a myriad of ways you can help, even if you don’t live near a body of water. For example, you can focus on reducing the amount of plastic you purchase for yourself or your family.

Another easy way to help clean up our oceans is to be aware of what’s known as the “dirty dozen.” Every year, scientists release an updated list of the most-found litter scattered along shorelines. The biggest culprit? Single-use beverage and food items such as foam cups, straws, bottle caps, and cigarette butts. If you can’t cut single-use plastic out of your life completely, we understand. Just make sure to correctly recycle plastic when you are finished using it. A staggering 3 million tons of plastic ends up in our oceans annually. Imagine the difference we could make if everyone recycled!

The 2022 "Dirty Dozen" ListOcean Wise

If you live near a shoreline, help clean it up! Organize or join an effort to take action and make a positive impact in your community alongside your friends, family, or colleagues. You can also tag @oceanwise on social if you spot a beach that needs some love. The location will be added to Ocean Wise’s system so you can submit data on the litter found during future Shoreline Cleanups. This data helps Ocean Wise work with businesses and governments to stop plastic pollution at its source. In Canada, Ocean Wise data helped inform a federal ban on unnecessary single-use plastics. Small but important actions like these greatly help reduce the litter that ends up in our ocean.

Ocean Wise, a conservation organization on a mission to restore and protect our oceans, is focused on empowering and educating everyone from individuals to governments on how to protect our waters. They are making conservation happen through five big initiatives: monitoring and protecting whales, fighting climate change and restoring biodiversity, innovating for a plastic-free ocean, protecting and restoring fish stocks, and finally, educating and empowering youth. The non-profit believes that in order to rebuild a resilient and vibrant ocean within the next ten years, everyone needs to take action.

Become an Ocean Wise ally and share your knowledge with others. The more people who know how badly the ocean needs our help, the better! Now is a great time to commit to being a part of something bigger and get our oceans healthy again.

Planet

Ammonia will ​​play a major role in fighting climate change

The emission-free fuel is key to decarbonizing maritime shipping. Here’s why.

Amogy CEO, Seonghoon Woo, with the tugboat that is being retrofitted with Amogy’s ammonia-powered technology

The world economy runs on maritime shipping. More than 80% of international goods by volume are transported by ships, which together weave the essential fabric of the global supply chain.

But all of that shipping comes at a high cost to the climate: Right now, every ship is powered by carbon-emitting fuel, which means maritime shipping is responsible for an estimated 3 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Curbing those emissions as soon as possible—and fully decarbonizing the industry as a whole—is an important piece of the worldwide project to fight climate change and reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Just to get on track, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has concluded that international shipping emissions must remain steady through 2025, then decline by three percent annually until the end of the decade. And the average lifespan of a shipping vessel is 25 years, which means that ships built from 2025 onward will need to run on zero-emission fuel or be powered by engines that are convertible to zero-emission fuel.

We need to build ships that can run on zero-emission fuel, we need to build them as soon as possible, and we need to scale up the production of fuel that will keep those ships running efficiently.

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Sustainability

A new material made from seaweed will transform the entire textile industry

Kelsun™, Keel Labs’ flagship product, is combating textile waste and turning the fashion industry (and potentially beyond) into a more sustainable economy.

Fashion is one of the planet’s biggest polluters – up to twenty one billion tonnes of textiles and materials end up in landfills every year, accounting for up to 10% of global CO2 emissions.

As a designer working in fashion and seeing first-hand the amount of waste and pollution generated by the industry, I recognized that the materials throughout our most fundamental items were simply too harmful to reconcile. Rather than continuing to contribute to the problem, I set out to make a change, starting with the building blocks of garments: fibers, yarns, and textiles.

My co-founder, Aleks Gosiewski and I founded Keel Labs with a mission to harness the radical potential of our oceans to positively impact the fashion industry and the world. The actualization of this mission is steadfastly rooted in our belief that we can transform our planetary health by combining material science and design thinking in collaboration with nature.

Our flagship product is a yarn called Kelsun™ made from abundant polymers found in kelp. By connecting planet-positive resources with the existing textile supply chain, we are able to help brands transform their models into the circular economy.

Because seaweed is vertically farmed in the ocean, sequesters carbon at a rapid rate, and is one of the most regenerative organisms on the planet, Kelsun™ has a lower environmental footprint than conventional fibers currently available on the market.

Kelsun™ also bypasses the environmental detriments of conventional yarn production. With a production process that uses no harmful chemicals, minimal water, and does not create toxic by-products, the result is a cleaner manufacturing process for people and the planet. Furthermore, Kelsun’s production is a drop-in solution for existing yarn and textile production infrastructure—enabling vast potential for scale.

As a collective of scientists, designers, and innovators who are fighting against material waste, we are building a healthy relationship between nature and the human ecosystems.

By using seaweed, which is not only a renewable source but also carbon sequestering, we are changing the textile ecosystem and creating a more sustainable and circular future.

Tessa Callaghan is a guest contributor to Upworthy and co-founder and CEO of Keel Labs.

All photos courtesy of The Coca-Cola Company

Behind the Scenes Making Recycled Records with Mark Ronson

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You’re walking down the sidewalk, earbuds in, listening to your favorite hip-hop beats. As your head bobs to the sounds, the sun warms your back. It’s a perfect day.

When the chorus hits, the empty Sprite bottle in your hand becomes a drumstick, passing traffic becomes a sea of concertgoers, and the concrete beneath your feet is suddenly a stage. Spinning on your heels, you close out the song with your face to the sky and hands in the air.

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