The Ocean Conservancy recently released the results from their worldwide beach clean-up effort last September and the numbers are shocking. The majority of items found? Single use disposable plastic items such as plastic bags, Styrofoam containers, etc. Listen here...

Our Take: While 6 million pounds sounds like a lot, it barely makes a dent in the sum total of garbage floating out there. The effort is significant, however, because it raises awareness on the issue and gives us more insight to the primary culprits.

In a unique take on raising awareness of the dramatic rise of plastics in our oceans, Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal are in the midst of an intense sailing expedition. Their vessel? A raft made from 15,000 plastic bottles, 5,000 plastic bags and a cockpit from an old Cessna airplane. Read more...

A couple of websites recently caught our attention, each detailing the Sci-Fi-esque (but very real) floating plastic island located approximately 500 nautical miles off the California coast. "The island" is a grotesquely large patch of floating plastic trash held together by currents stretching across the northern Pacific almost as far as Japan. Discovered by Charles Moore, this "plastic island" is made up of about 100 million tons of plastic garbage. Read more...

Our Take: There is a similarity between this huge plastic island in the middle of the ocean and the enormity of plastic bag consumption. Scientists can't agree on the size of "the island" just like no one knows exactly how many plastic bags are being produced and consumed. The one thing everyone agrees on is that the scale of both is huge and deserves our attention. This "island" is the direct effect of our overconsumption. By achieving a significant reduction in use-and-toss items, we can actually make a difference.

When our founder was in Hawaii last March, he heard the locals talking about the advent of "Plastic Beaches". Watch the video...

Our Take: You've heard about the "Texas-sized" Plastic Island" off California's west coast, but how about the disturbing news of plastic beaches and plastic sand?! Plastic is accumulating at an alarming rate in our oceans -- wreaking havoc on wildlife, polluting our beaches and entering our food chain.

Of 500,000 albatross chicks born each year on Midway Atoll, about 200,000 die of starvation. The awful truth - in their searches of the ocean surface, albatrosses mistake plastic trash for food and end up feeding Lego blocks, clothespins, plastic bag bits and a host of other man-made junk to their chicks. Learn more...

Maui native Micah Wolf teams up with the Algalita Marine Research Foundation and photographer Ben Moon to create this powerful music video that empowers us to do something about the amount of plastics in our oceans. Watch the video...

The information we've laid out in this Top Stories Newsletter might feel overwhelming. The plastic in our oceans isn't going anywhere and we are adding to it at a break-neck pace. Our friends at the Surfrider Foundation ask you to make a personal commitment by taking their pledge to rise above plastics. Through awareness and simple steps you can help make a difference. Click here and take 1 minute to make the pledge...

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