More than 1.3M plastic bottles were collected during the world’s largest single-day volunteer ocean cleanup
Last year, the Ocean Conservancy hosted its annual International Coastal Cleanup. About 630,000 participants covered over 15,000 miles of coastline and waterways, removing around 13.9 million pieces of trash — 1.3 million of them plastic bottles.
Volunteers also cleaned up more than 1.2 million cigarette butts, 885,000 plastic bottle caps, and 581,000 plastic shopping bags — but plastic bottles were the most common item.
A growing number of bans and initiatives are helping curb some pollution, but more needs to be done. Germany, Sweden, and Ireland have all had successful bottle deposit programs, and after nearly a decade, the U.K.’s is expected to begin in 2027.
What’s the nuance? It’s incredibly good news that these items aren’t littering the world’s beaches and waterways anymore — but experts say these efforts can’t keep up with the pace we’re producing plastic, and we need better recycling and bottle deposit returns to make sure it actually can be recycled.
A record 12% of adults in the U.S. now identify as LGBTQ+
Despite attempts to suppress the LGBTQ+ community across the country, a new analysis from the Human Rights Campaign of U.S. Census data found that LGBTQ+ people now represent 12% of adults — the highest ever recorded.
The analysis looked at data collected between 2021 and 2024, and found that around 26.5 million people in the U.S. identify as LGBTQ+. Furthermore, LGBTQ+ people make up over 10% of the population in 40 states.
Of those 26.5 million people, 53% are between the ages of 18 and 34, confirming other studies that have shown increases in the number of people who identify as LGBTQ+ in the U.S.
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