December 11, 2012 – The Center petitioned the EPA to designate the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands — including the portion of the enormous Pacific Garbage Patch within U.S. waters — as the nation's newest Superfund site.
November 6, 2013 – Responding to our August 2012 petition, the EPA said it would take steps to cut plastic pollution in oceans, improve monitoring and conduct a scientific review of the human-health effects of eating fish that have ingested plastics and other pollution.
November 18, 2013 – In response to our December 2012 petition, the EPA agreed to take a historic first step toward classifying a tiny Hawaiian coral island, Tern Island, as a Superfund site because of hazards posed by plastic pollution.
September 9, 2014 – The Environmental Protection Agency released an assessment documenting the hazard that plastic pollution poses to wildlife on Tern Island in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands — a key finding that could advance Tern Island as a potential Superfund site, an area of toxic hazard singled out for federal cleanup.
December 11, 2014 – A new study revealed that the world's ocean is awash in 5 trillion pieces of plastic — from tiny beads and toys to shopping bags and bottles — weighing more than 250,000 tons. One of the researchers said it's the equivalent of two-liter plastic bottles stacked end-to-end in a column that stretches to the moon and back twice.