Baykeeper Updates Related to Microplastics

Column: November 1, 2019
Every year, 7 trillion tiny pieces of plastic—microplastics—flow into San Francisco Bay. Once these tiny pieces are in the water, they never go away. They just break into smaller and smaller pieces. Microplastics range from the size of a popcorn kernel to smaller than a grain of salt. Some plastic...
BK In The News: October 28, 2019
A study published in early October by two Bay Area environmental research institutes has raised alarm among local environmentalists after it found that the San Francisco Bay is highly polluted with microplastics, tiny plastic particles... Sejal Choksi Chugh, executive director of Baykeeper, a...
BK In The News: October 2, 2019
Every year, 7 trillion tiny pieces of plastic, roughly equal to 1 million pieces each for every man, woman and child in the Bay Area, flow into SF Bay... The trash rules are a good start, but allow cities to estimate how much they have reduced their trash, and need more oversight and enforcement,...
Blog Post: August 15, 2019
By 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the world's waters… unless we act now to change how people use and dispose of plastic products. San Francisco Bay is already suffering from an onslaught of plastic pollution. Baykeeper has documented large volumes of plastic trash, as well as micro...
Featured Stories: October 27, 2017
You can stop pollution in the Bay from microbeads—very small plastic particles found in some cosmetics and personal care products. They spread through aquatic ecosystems and hurt fish. When rinsed down the drain, microbeads are too small to be removed by sewage treatment. Instead, they are released...
Column: October 1, 2015
Tiny plastic balls too small to see, fragments of plastic bottles, plastic pellets used in manufacturing—they’re all in San Francisco Bay. It’s an invisible problem that harms swimmers and sea life, but help is on the way. In a victory for a cleaner Bay, a new law passed by the California...
Blog Post: May 22, 2015
The California Assembly voted today to ban the sale of consumer products containing plastic microbeads. Microbeads are tiny particles of plastic used in facial scrubs, shampoo, soap, toothpaste, eyeliner, lip gloss, deodorant, and sunblock. When these products are washed down a sink or shower drain...
Blog Post: March 9, 2011
Baykeeper recently started, in collaboration with the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI), the first-ever pilot program aimed at quantifying the amount of plastic floating in the Bay. As part of this endeavor, I went out on the Baykeeper boat with SFEI staff  to trawl near the shorelines of San...
Join us to hold polluters accountable and defend the Bay DONATE NOW >