How To Protect The Ocean

You rinse the yogurt tub, check the number on the bottom, and drop it in the blue bin. In Canada, only about 9% of plastic waste actually gets recycled, and the global rate is the same. Andrew breaks down why plastic is so hard to recycle, why microplastics are so hard to study, and what the controversy over plastic-in-the-brain headlines does and doesn't tell us.
Then the story moves to a beach in Stanley Park in 1994, where Vancouver Aquarium staff and volunteers started picking up trash and writing down what they found. That cleanup grew into a national program, and its data fed into the federal science assessment that led Canada to list plastic manufactured items as toxic and ban six single-use items. Industry groups took Ottawa to court and won the first round in 2023. On January 30, 2026, the Federal Court of Appeal reversed that ruling.
Andrew walks through what that win delivers: a ban projected to keep more than 22,000 tonnes of plastic pollution out of the environment over ten years, and a Federal Plastics Registry that tracks plastic from the producer to its end of life. He's honest about the setbacks too, then closes with the simplest action in the series: join a shoreline cleanup and record what you find.
Takeaways:
Canada recycled only about 9% of its plastic waste in 2016, and 86% went to landfill.
Globally, plastic waste doubled from 2000 to 2019, and 22% was mismanaged.
Plastic is many materials, which is a big reason recycling struggles.
Microplastics are everywhere, and that makes clean lab controls hard to find.
Some high-profile studies on plastic in the human body now face methodological challenges.
Volunteer shoreline cleanup data informed Canada's science assessment of plastic pollution.
Canada listed plastic manufactured items as toxic in 2021 and banned six single-use items.
The Federal Court of Appeal upheld that listing on January 30, 2026.
The Federal Plastics Registry now requires companies to report the plastic they put on the market.
Join a shoreline cleanup that records its data, and your tally counts.
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In 2001, government scientists started adding a tiny amount of the synthetic estrogen found in birth control pills to a remote lake in northwestern Ontario, at levels already measured in city wastewater. Within seven weeks, male fish were making egg-yolk protein. After two summers, some had eggs growing in their testes, and the fathead minnow population collapsed to about 1% of normal. Andrew explains how the same chemistry leaves our bodies every day, passes through treatment plants built for sewage and bacteria, and flows into rivers, lakes, and the coast.
Hormones are only part of it. In Sweden, researchers at Umeå University found that perch exposed to the anti-anxiety drug oxazepam, at levels matching wild fish, became bolder, fed faster, and drifted away from their schools, all behaviours that make a small fish easier to eat. Andrew then goes back to DDT, when bald eagles fell to 417 nesting pairs in the lower 48 states before the 1972 US ban let them climb past 71,000 breeding pairs.
The recovery story continues at Lake 260. Once the hormone additions stopped, the minnows came back to pre-experiment levels within three years. Switzerland is now upgrading about 120 treatment plants with ozone or activated carbon to remove more than 80% of these micropollutants, paid for by a small annual fee per person. Andrew closes with the part you control today: take your leftover and expired medications back to a pharmacy.
Takeaways:
Your body doesn't use every bit of a pill, and what's left leaves in urine.
Most treatment plants remove solids and bacteria, and many drug compounds pass straight through.
At Lake 260, synthetic estrogen at about 5 to 6 nanograms per litre collapsed the fathead minnow population to about 1%.
Lake trout that ate those minnows declined too.
Oxazepam made perch bolder, faster feeders, and loners, raising their risk from predators.
Bald eagles went from 417 nesting pairs in 1963 to more than 71,000 breeding pairs after DDT was banned.
Lake 260's minnows recovered within three years once the hormone additions stopped.
Switzerland is adding ozone and activated carbon treatment to about 120 plants to remove more than 80% of micropollutants.
Ontario's free pharmacy return program collected more than 330,000 kg of medications in 2024.
Keep taking what your doctor prescribes, and return the leftovers to a pharmacy instead of flushing or trashing them.
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This summer, people are boarding whale watching boats and seeing humpbacks feeding in sight of the Manhattan skyline. Fifty years ago, that same water was an open sewer, and every toilet on Manhattan's West Side flushed straight into the Hudson River, untreated. Andrew tells the story of how the whales got here, and why it took most of a century.
He starts with the cause: sewers built to empty into the rivers, roughly 590 million gallons of raw sewage a day by the early 1900s, and floating screens at Coney Island to keep it away from swimmers. Then the turn. The city began testing the harbor in 1909 because people demanded it. In 1966, Hudson River fishermen met in an American Legion hall in Crotonville and used an 1899 bounty law against polluters, founding what became Riverkeeper. The Clean Water Act followed in 1972. The North River treatment plant, first proposed in 1938, finally opened in 1986 and ended daily raw sewage discharges into the Hudson, with the West Harlem community carrying the cost of its siting and sparking the environmental justice group WE ACT.
The results are hard to argue with: bacteria below dry-weather swimming standards since 1992, record oxygen levels, and 500 individual humpbacks identified in New York waters by Gotham Whale, helped by menhaden catch limits that let their food rebound. The work isn't finished, since heavy rain still pushes sewage through roughly 700 overflow outfalls. Andrew closes with one action: find your local Waterkeeper and follow your own water.
Takeaways:
New York's sewers were designed to empty straight into the Hudson, the East River, and the harbor.
By the early 1900s, roughly 590 million gallons of raw sewage a day flowed into the harbor.
The city's Harbor Survey began in 1909 because of public outcry, and it still runs today.
In 1966, Hudson River fishermen used an 1899 bounty law against polluters and founded what became Riverkeeper, now a model for more than 300 Waterkeeper groups.
The 1972 Clean Water Act required real treatment and funded it.
The North River plant took nearly 50 years from proposal (1938) to opening (1986).
The plant's siting in West Harlem led to the founding of WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
Bacteria have stayed below dry-weather swimming standards since 1992.
Humpback sightings in the harbor estuary jumped from 1 (2011 to 2013) to 45 (2014 to 2016); 500 individuals have now been identified.
Cleaner water and 2012 menhaden catch limits worked together to bring the whales back.
Combined sewer overflows during heavy rain are the unfinished business.
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Plastic keeps getting made, it never goes away, and almost none of it gets recycled. Dr. Judith Weis, Professor Emerita at Rutgers University Newark and Andrew's very first guest on this podcast more than 2,000 episodes ago, returns for her fourth appearance to talk about the second edition of her book, Marine Pollution: What Everyone Needs to Know.
Judith walks through every major category of marine pollution: nutrients, metals, oil, pesticides, marine debris, pharmaceuticals, ocean acidification, and one category that surprises most people, biological pollution. She explains why microplastics earned a brand new chapter, why they're so hard to study when they're in every lab and every body, and what Canada's legal fight over listing plastic as toxic means for regulation.
There's good news too. Judith grew up near a Hudson River full of raw sewage. After the Clean Water Act and new treatment plants, New Yorkers now walk the waterfront, the water is swimmable in dry weather, and humpback whales feed in New York Harbor. Andrew and Judith ask what that comeback can and can't teach us about plastic, and what you can do today.
Takeaways:
Every major type of marine pollution comes down to three questions: where it comes from, what it does, and what we can do about it.
Judith calls plastic the number one villain in marine pollution today because production keeps rising and recycling doesn't work at scale.
Microplastics are 5 mm or smaller, mostly invisible, and carry chemicals both inside them and stuck to their surfaces.
They're so widespread that researchers struggle to find microplastic-free controls for experiments.
Canada listed plastic manufactured items as toxic under CEPA, banned six single-use categories, and saw that listing upheld on appeal.
Large tanker spills have become far less common, with double hulls part of the reason.
Sewage treatment after the Clean Water Act transformed the Hudson River and New York Harbor, and whales are back.
Pharmaceuticals and hormones pass through treatment plants and change fish behavior and biology.
Invasive species count as biological pollution, and unlike chemicals, they reproduce.
Beach cleanups, local environmental chapters, and cutting your own plastic use are practical places to start.
Buy the book: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/marine-pollution-9780197753811?cc=ca&lang=en&

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All week, Andrew has asked listeners to comment on and show up for California's marine protected area review. Today he answers the question that comes after: once the meeting ends and the news coverage stops, how do you find out if anything actually changed? He works through four practical questions every ocean advocate should know how to answer.
First, where to find the current rules for any of the 124 MPAs in California's network (the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's own MPA pages). Second, why a Fish and Game Commission vote isn't the finish line, since approved changes still go through the state's formal rulemaking process before they're enforceable, which can take months. Third, how the rules get enforced on the ground, including MPA Watch, a statewide community science program where trained volunteers record how people use the coast inside and outside MPAs. Fourth, what happens to a petition that doesn't get adopted, and why the 10-year adaptive management cycle means it can come back.
Andrew closes with the bigger picture from this week: MPA design brings together natural science, social science, and the voices of everyone who uses the coast, and everyone deserves to feel safe speaking. He wants to hear from California listeners about MPA Watch and this week's episodes. Next week, Dr. Judith Weis joins the show to talk marine pollution.
Takeaways:
CDFW's MPA pages are the authoritative, current source for maps and rules at every MPA in California.
A Commission vote starts the formal rulemaking process; a change only becomes enforceable once that process is complete.
The gap between approval and enforcement can take months, and that time is spent making sure a rule holds up in law.
MPA Watch trains volunteers to record human activity inside and outside MPAs, and CDFW and research partners use that data.
About 2,000 volunteers had joined MPA Watch by 2019.
California reviews its MPA network every 10 years, so a petition that doesn't pass this cycle can be revisited with new science and data.
MPA design draws on natural science, social science, and community input together.
You can take part by checking the rules, joining MPA Watch, or simply attending a Commission meeting to observe.
Website: https://californiampas.org/about-mpas/california-state-mpas
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