Heal the Bay is a U.S. environmental group of people who work to protect the environment. It is based in Santa Monica, California, and focuses on protecting coastal waters and watersheds in southern California, especially Santa Monica Bay.
Save Our Shores (SOS) is a nonprofit organization that works to “help create healthy and lasting ecosystems in the Monterey Bay and nearby areas through fair environmental actions.” SOS has created the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS), stopped offshore oil drilling along California’s Central Coast, started the well-known Dockwalkers clean boating program, helped ban single-use plastic bags in more than 30 areas, and organized beach cleanups and educational programs for students in grades K-12 in the Monterey Bay region. Now, the organization focuses on advocacy, reducing marine debris (especially plastic pollution), and helping people become ocean protectors. This includes teaching the community about local watersheds and marine protected areas (MPA), solving the plastic pollution problem by creating local rules and hosting cleanups, supporting efforts to protect habitats, teaching people how to deal with climate change, and continuing their Sanctuary Stewards and Dockwalker programs.
The Surfrider Foundation is a U.S. 501(c)(3) non-profit environmental group that works to influence others to protect oceans and beaches.
Ocean Conservancy, originally named The Delta Corporation, is a nonprofit group that works to protect the environment. It is based in Washington, D.C., United States. The organization aims to help keep oceans healthy and full of different life, stop pollution in the ocean, address climate change, and work to stop harmful activities that endanger ocean life and people.
Plogging is the activity of picking up litter while jogging. It began as a group activity in Sweden around 2016 (the name comes from the Swedish word plocka upp, which means “to pick up”) and became popular in other countries in 2018 because of growing worry about plastic pollution. As a form of exercise, plogging adds different body movements, such as bending, squatting, and stretching, to the main actions of running, hiking, or walking.
The continued pollution of the Ganges, the largest river in India, creates a big danger for people’s health and the environment. The river provides water to about 40% of India’s population across 11 states and helps about 500 million people—more than any other river in the world. Many efforts to clean the river have not worked well.
The Yangtze River, also called the Yangzi River or Chang Jiang, is the longest river in China and the third-longest river in the world. It begins at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows for 6,236 kilometers (about 3,875 miles), including the Dam Qu River, which is its longest source. The river flows mostly eastward to the East China Sea.
This list includes rivers and streams that have been considered, now or in the past, as some of the most polluted in the world. These waterways are chosen based on the amount of pollution they contain, how serious the pollution is in different parts of the stream, how it affects people who live nearby, or a mix of these reasons.
The Ocean Cleanup is a nonprofit group that works on environmental engineering projects in the Netherlands. It creates and uses technology to remove plastic waste from oceans and to catch it in rivers before it reaches the ocean. The group first focused on the Pacific Ocean and its garbage patch, and later expanded to rivers in countries like Indonesia, Guatemala, and the United States.
Boyan Slat was born on July 27, 1994. He is a Dutch inventor and business leader. Before becoming the chief executive officer of The Ocean Cleanup, he studied aerospace engineering.