Don't Trash Our Treasure

Part of the Don't Trash Our Treasure franchise has included discussing the benefits of restoring mangroves to South Florida's shorelines, especially when it comes to protecting us from storm surge and sea level rise.

Protecting Biscayne Bay isn't just about what goes into the water. It's also about monitoring what we do with the land surrounding this fragile eco-system.

This month proved to be deadly for two endangered sperm whales that beached themselves in the water of the Florida Keys last week.

Fertilizers are used to keep lawns green and promote healthy garden growth, but those same fertilizers are deadly to our bays and waterways because they feed algae and kill sea grass.

The global nonprofit Aspen Institute is hosting their first ever Ideas conference on climate for four days beginning Monday.

Biscayne Bay is at a dangerous tipping point between a healthy seagrass ecosystem, which we all now enjoy, to one dominated by algae that will no longer support life as we know it.

Dozens of volunteers picked up 525 pounds of trash on Friday off Biscayne Bay shore. It was their way of celebrating Earth Day, a worldwide annual event that has been promoting environmental protection since 1970.

This Earth Day marks one year since Local 10 News launched its “Don’t Trash Our Treasure” series, and throughout this journey, we’ve met some pretty remarkable South Floridians doing their part to protect our precious backyard.

Ask any ocean fisherman, many of them see sharks as public enemy number one.

We have long been reporting on the critical pollution problem infecting all South Florida waterways, leading to the rapidly declining health of Biscayne Bay.

As the rainy season and summer months approach, there is real concern of another fish kill in Biscayne Bay if we don’t get a handle on all the pollution that still flows into the watershed.

Here's how you can attend Ultra Musical Festival while reducing your carbon footprint.

The city of Miami Beach is breaking up with Coca-Cola as the city’s exclusive water and soft drink sponsor after Coke wouldn’t reduce the plastic packaging for its products.

Following South Beach being trashed by students from Miami-Dade public schools, Miami Beach city leaders are taking note and taking action as spring breakers descend upon our beaches in the coming weeks.

Volunteer clean-up crews who routinely clean all of South Florida's beaches were shocked and stunned when they saw how those kids left Miami Beach on Tuesday.

The Save Our Sisters Dragon Boat squad competes in races and serves as "godmothers" to the Miami Marine Stadium basin as others threaten the beloved waterway.

Textiles account for 9% of all microplastics polluting our planet and your shopping choices can have a significant impact on the environment, our oceans and climate change.

South Florida boaters rallied at the capitol earlier today to share their opposition to a water bill that will threaten local waters.

Temporary docks and sea trials for the Miami International Boat Show are set up in a protected manatee habitat, endangering the already threatened creatures, environmentalists say.

The unprecedented human effort to feed starving Florida manatees has so far provided the lovable marine mammals with more than 25 tons of lettuce.

An experimental program is feeding Florida manatees with romaine lettuce to supplement their diets after so much of the state's seagrass has been lost.

Florida, like the rest of the planet, is in the grips of a waste crisis, and a new report just released by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection outlines just how dire the situation has become.

The county says that approximately 120,000 septic tank systems are still in use in Miami-Dade and that 9,000 are vulnerable to compromise or failure under current groundwater conditions.

New signage has cut down on dangerous boating in the Miami Marine Stadium basin, and lawmakers are looking to further crackdown on illegal activity in Florida waterways.

When it comes to celebrating or memorializing anyone with balloons, don’t let them go. They are horrible for the environment.

Miami-based Debris Free Oceans is fighting to save our reefs by cleaning up all the trash we dump on them.

BeBot, the battery- and solar-powered beach cleaning robot, is here to suck up all the junk we humans leave behind.

On Earth Day, April 22, Local 10 News launched a new initiative, "Don't Trash our Treasure" -- a weekly series of environmental reports where we focus on the challenges our natural world is facing right now and on how we all play part in restoring and protecting our most valuable resource: our home, planet Earth.

A class at The Cushman School in Miami has become inspired to write letters to Gov. Ron DeSantis and Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava pushing for measure to protect Biscayne Bay.

Coca-Cola’s $325,000 per year sponsorship deal with the city of Miami Beach is in limbo because of the plastic that Coke products usually come packaged in.

The Adopt a Dune program restores South Florida's beaches by replanting the sea oats that once upon a time grew wild and free.

Arina Zhirkova, an 18-year-old senior at NSU University School, launched Sunny Isles Beach Cleanup, gaining volunteers for her mission through social media.

Sea turtles have been living on the planet since the time of the dinosaurs around 110 million years. But sadly, six of the seven species of sea turtles are either threatened, endangered or critically endangered.

For over 100 years as South Florida’s coastline was developed, acres upon acres of mangroves were destroyed in the process.

Before leaving for Glasgow to address world leaders at the UN climate summit, Sylvia Earle joined Local 10 News to talk about this critical turning point in our history — and how all of us play a part in restoring balance to our planet.

Feared and unfairly maligned as the villains of the sea, it is the shark that is actually in charge of keeping our oceans healthy. They are the doctors of the sea, keeping fish populations healthy by eating the slow, the sick and the weak — preventing diseases from becoming ocean pandemics.