About 12 million tons of plastics enter the oceans every year—the equivalent of a full garbage truck every minute. The total includes millions of grocery bags. But restrictions on the bags appear to be having a positive effect. Several studies have found big reductions in the number of bags found on beaches.

Plastic bags are a huge problem for ocean life. Animals can get tangled up in them. Birds and turtles mistake them for jellyfish and eat them. And fish eat bits of plastic if the bags fall apart. So reducing the number of bags in the oceans can save the lives of many creatures.

One study looked at the beaches in the United Kingdom. Governments there began cutting back on the bags more than a decade ago. Some of them banned the bags, while others required stores to charge for them. Since the restrictions went into effect, the number of bags picked up on the beaches has gone down by 80 percent.

There have also been big reductions in the United States. A dozen states have banned the bags, along with a couple of hundred cities and counties. Others require consumers to pay for the bags. A study by Ocean Conservancy found that volunteers picked up 29 percent fewer bags in 2022 and ’23 compared to the years before Covid-19. The numbers went way up during the pandemic as bag rules were suspended.

Millions of bags are still washing into the oceans. So birds, turtles, and other life still face a threat from this common form of trash.

Depending on which side of the country you live on, you probably either hate or love sea urchins. Off the coast of California, there are too many of the spiny creatures. They’re destroying kelp beds, harming the entire ecosystem.

But off the coast of Florida—and throughout the Caribbean Sea—there aren’t enough urchins. And without them, coral reefs are dying off.

Long-spined sea urchins used to be common in the Caribbean. They have black spines that can be up to a foot long. And their “teeth” are rocky plates that allow them to scrape algae from corals and other hard surfaces.

In 1983, a disease raced across the Caribbean. Within two weeks, it had killed 97 percent of the urchins. And in 2022, a parasite hit the still-recovering urchin population, wiping out most of the urchins on most reefs.

Without the urchins, the algae population has exploded. Algae can cover the corals, blocking the sunlight the living corals need to survive. The algae also coat the surfaces that young corals latch themselves to, preventing them from establishing new colonies.

Combined with climate change, ocean pollution, and other problems, that’s cut the amount of corals across the Caribbean by about 80 percent since the 1970s.

Today, scientists are raising urchins in the lab, then dropping them on reefs. It’s too early to tell how that’s working out. But researchers are hopeful that the efforts will begin to restore balance to Caribbean reefs.

The ocean floor near Los Angeles is the largest graveyard for whales yet seen. Surveys have found evidence of more than 60 whale skeletons there. Scientists have used sonar and video cameras to map a couple of ocean basins that are centered about 15 miles offshore.

Researchers have been studying the region for years, in part because it was a dumping ground for DDT and related chemicals. Scientists are seeing how that affects life in the ocean, and how it might impact human health.

The most detailed mapping came in 2021 and 2023. It revealed many barrels of toxic chemicals, along with unexploded depth charges and other weapons from World War II.

It also revealed seven confirmed whale skeletons, of six different species, with hints of many others—more than the total seen in the rest of the world combined.

The remains of whales can feed fish and other critters for months. And, worms and microbes eventually consume even the bones. Researchers say there could be many reasons for the apparent bounty of whale skeletons. For one thing, few areas of the ocean floor have been scanned in as much detail as this one. For another, the region is packed with both whales and ships, so whales are more likely to be killed in collisions. And the deep water in the region contains little oxygen, which keeps the skeletons from decomposing.

Future expeditions will continue to map the region—perhaps finding even more remains in this graveyard for whales.