Latest news with #marinepollution
CTV News
5 days ago
- General
- CTV News
Sri Lankan court orders owners of container ship to pay US$1 billion in marine pollution compensation
A stray dog stands amid the waves as decomposed remains of a turtle lies on a polluted beach following the sinking of a container ship, the X-Press Pearl, a Singapore-flagged ship, that caught fire while transporting chemicals off Kapungoda, outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka, June 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, File) COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's top court on Thursday ordered the owners of a Singapore-flagged container ship that sank near its capital to pay US$1 billion in compensation to the island nation's government for causing the most severe marine environment catastrophe in the country's history. The container ship MV X-Press Peal, which was carrying chemicals, sank off Colombo in June, 2021 after catching fire. The Supreme Court said the incident caused 'unprecedented devastation to the marine environment of Sri Lanka' and harmed the country's economy, especially the lives of the fishing communities. Judges said the disaster led to the death of 417 turtles, 48 dolphins, eight whales and a large number of fish species that washed ashore after the incident. Debris from the ship, including several tons of plastic pellets used to make plastic bags, caused severe pollution on beaches. 'This marine environmental disaster constitutes the largest recorded marine plastic spill in the world,' the judgement said. 'It resulted in the widespread release of toxic and hazardous substances into the marine environment, poisoning ocean waters, killing marine species, and destructing phytoplankton.' Due to the severe marine pollution, the government imposed a fishing ban for well over a year, depriving fishermen of their income and livelihood. The incident 'continues to cause destruction and harm to Sri Lanka's marine environment,' said the judgement, signed by five supreme court judges. The judgement was given against the X-Press Pearl group that included ship's registered owner, EOS Ro Pte. Limited, and other charterers. All are based in Singapore. An agent in Sri Lanka, Sea Consortium Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd., was also named. The court said it has sufficient reasons to hold that X-Press Pearl group 'should be held accountable and liable under the Polluter Pays Principle for the pollution caused by the MV X-Press Pearl vessel.' It said the owner, operators and local agent of the ship were all liable for the payment of compensation, which should be used to restore and protect the affected marine and coastal environment. There was no immediate comment on the judgement from the owner or agent of the vessel. The court ruling came after several parties, including environment campaigners and fisher rights groups, filed litigation seeking compensation. Bharatha Mallawarachi, The Associated Press
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Sri Lankan court orders owners of container ship to pay $1 billion in marine pollution compensation
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka's top court on Thursday ordered the owners of a Singapore-flagged container ship that sank near its capital to pay $1 billion in compensation to the island nation's government for causing the most severe marine environment catastrophe in the country's history. The container ship MV X-Press Peal, which was carrying chemicals, sank off Colombo in June, 2021 after catching fire. The Supreme Court said the incident caused 'unprecedented devastation to the marine environment of Sri Lanka' and harmed the country's economy, especially the lives of the fishing communities. Judges said the disaster led to the death of 417 turtles, 48 dolphins, eight whales and a large number of fish species that washed ashore after the incident. Debris from the ship, including several tons of plastic pellets used to make plastic bags, caused severe pollution on beaches. 'This marine environmental disaster constitutes the largest recorded marine plastic spill in the world,' the judgement said. 'It resulted in the widespread release of toxic and hazardous substances into the marine environment, poisoning ocean waters, killing marine species, and destructing phytoplankton." Due to the severe marine pollution, the government imposed a fishing ban for well over a year, depriving fishermen of their income and livelihood. The incident "continues to cause destruction and harm to Sri Lanka's marine environment,' said the judgement, signed by five supreme court judges. The judgement was given against the X-Press Pearl group that included ship's registered owner, EOS Ro Pte. Limited, and other charterers. All are based in Singapore. An agent in Sri Lanka, Sea Consortium Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd., was also named. The court said it has sufficient reasons to hold that X-Press Pearl group 'should be held accountable and liable under the Polluter Pays Principle for the pollution caused by the MV X-Press Pearl vessel.' It said the owner, operators and local agent of the ship were all liable for the payment of compensation, which should be used to restore and protect the affected marine and coastal environment. There was no immediate comment on the judgement from the owner or agent of the vessel. The court ruling came after several parties, including environment campaigners and fisher rights groups, filed litigation seeking compensation. Bharatha Mallawarachi, The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Associated Press
5 days ago
- Associated Press
Sri Lankan court orders owners of container ship to pay $1 billion in marine pollution compensation
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka's top court on Thursday ordered the owners of a Singapore-flagged container ship that sank near its capital to pay $1 billion in compensation to the island nation's government for causing the most severe marine environment catastrophe in the country's history. The container ship MV X-Press Peal, which was carrying chemicals, sank off Colombo in June, 2021 after catching fire. The Supreme Court said the incident caused 'unprecedented devastation to the marine environment of Sri Lanka' and harmed the country's economy, especially the lives of the fishing communities. Judges said the disaster led to the death of 417 turtles, 48 dolphins, eight whales and a large number of fish species that washed ashore after the incident. Debris from the ship, including several tons of plastic pellets used to make plastic bags, caused severe pollution on beaches. 'This marine environmental disaster constitutes the largest recorded marine plastic spill in the world,' the judgement said. 'It resulted in the widespread release of toxic and hazardous substances into the marine environment, poisoning ocean waters, killing marine species, and destructing phytoplankton.' Due to the severe marine pollution, the government imposed a fishing ban for well over a year, depriving fishermen of their income and livelihood. The incident 'continues to cause destruction and harm to Sri Lanka's marine environment,' said the judgement, signed by five supreme court judges. The judgement was given against the X-Press Pearl group that included ship's registered owner, EOS Ro Pte. Limited, and other charterers. All are based in Singapore. An agent in Sri Lanka, Sea Consortium Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd., was also named. The court said it has sufficient reasons to hold that X-Press Pearl group 'should be held accountable and liable under the Polluter Pays Principle for the pollution caused by the MV X-Press Pearl vessel.' It said the owner, operators and local agent of the ship were all liable for the payment of compensation, which should be used to restore and protect the affected marine and coastal environment. There was no immediate comment on the judgement from the owner or agent of the vessel. The court ruling came after several parties, including environment campaigners and fisher rights groups, filed litigation seeking compensation.
Gizmodo
22-07-2025
- Science
- Gizmodo
You Don't Want to Know Where Scientists Just Found 27 Million Tons of Plastic
Despite the hundreds of millions of metric tons of plastic floating in our oceans—not to mention the microplastics in our saliva, blood, breast milk, and semen—researchers have been unable to account for all the plastic ever produced. A new study has just tracked down a large portion of it. Researchers from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) and Utrecht University claim to be the first to provide a real estimate of ocean-polluting nanoplastics. Their research indicates that the North Atlantic Ocean alone hosts 27 million tons of floating plastic particles less than 1 micrometer (μm) in size. 'Plastic pollution of the marine realm is widespread, with most scientific attention given to macroplastics and microplastics. By contrast, ocean nanoplastics (<1 μm) remain largely unquantified, leaving gaps in our understanding of the mass budget of this plastic size class,' they explained in a study published earlier this month in the journal Nature. 'Our findings suggest that nanoplastics comprise the dominant fraction of marine plastic pollution.' To reach these conclusions, Utrecht graduate student and study co-author Sophie ten Hietbrink collected water samples from 12 locations while working aboard a research vessel traveling from the Azores to the continental shelf of Europe. She filtered the samples of anything larger than one micrometer and conducted a molecular analysis on what was left behind. The team then extrapolated its results to the entire North Atlantic Ocean. 27 million tons is 'a shocking amount,' Ten Hietbrink said in a NIOZ statement. 'But with this we do have an important answer to the paradox of the missing plastic.' Namely, that a large part of it is floating in our oceans, invisible to the naked eye. Unfortunately, there are a number of ways nanoparticles can end up in the oceans. While some likely arrive via rivers, others fall out of the sky with rain or on their own as 'dry deposition.' (Yes, we've even found plastic pollution in the sky). Nanoparticles can also form when large pieces of plastic already in the ocean are broken down by waves and/or sunlight, according to the researchers. The question now is how this pollution is impacting the world and its creatures—including us. 'It is already known that nanoplastics can penetrate deep into our bodies. They are even found in brain tissue. Now that we know they are so ubiquitous in the oceans, it's also obvious that they penetrate the entire ecosystem; from bacteria and other microorganisms to fish and top predators like humans,' said Helge Niemann, a geochemist at NIOZ and another co-author of the study. 'How that pollution affects the ecosystem needs further investigation.' The missing plastic paradox, however, is not completely solved, because not all plastics were represented in the samples. The team didn't find polyethylene or polypropylene, for example. 'It may well be that those were masked by other molecules in the study. We also want to know if nanoplastics are as abundant in the other oceans. It is to be feared that they do, but that remains to be proven,' Niemann added. 'The nanoplastics that are there, can never be cleaned up. So an important message from this research is that we should at least prevent the further pollution of our environment with plastics.'
BBC News
22-07-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Algal bloom killing marine life in South Australia is 'disaster', premier says
An algal bloom catastrophe which has turned usually pristine South Australian waters toxic green and suffocated masses of marine life is a "natural disaster", the state premier has algal bloom - a rapid increase in the population of algae in water systems – has been spreading since March and is now twice the size of the country's capital territory. The federal government has unveiled an assistance package of A$14m ($9m; £6.7m) but refused to designate the event a natural disaster - a term usually used for cyclones, floods and bushfires and which would trigger a greater say more than 400 marine species have died and local industries are suffering. Algal bloom is naturally occurring but is caused by ocean warming, marine heatwaves, and nutrient pollution - all a direct result of climate change."This is a natural disaster and should be acknowledged as such... I think politicians can do themselves a disservice when they get caught up in technicalities," South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on announced his government would match the federal government's A$14m in funding, with money to go towards research, clean up, and industry support Senator for South Australia Sarah Hanson-Young is among those openly criticising the federal government, accusing them of underplaying the situation."If this toxic algal bloom was wreaking havoc on Bondi Beach or on the North Shore in Sydney, the prime minister would have already been on the beach with a response," she federal Environment Minister Murray Watt on Monday said while the bloom and its impacts were "incredibly disturbing", the catastrophe did not meet the definition of a natural disaster under the country's bloom - which now stretches from Coorong to the Yorke Peninsula, an area about double the size of the Australian Capital Territory - is decimating the local environment and lining the coastline with dead wildlife."It is like a horror movie for fish," Brad Martin - from OzFish, a non-profit organisation that protects fishing habitats - told the BBC in the event is also wreaking havoc on the local economy. Representatives of the fishing industry say some of their members have had no income for at least three months."I've got fishermen in tears on the phone," Ian Mitchell - who works as a middleman between fishers and retailers - told the ABC.
