Don't Trash Our Treasure

Ever since Local 10 News launched our Don’t Trash our Treasure campaign, we’ve been telling you about all the damage caused by balloons released into our environment.

On a windy January morning, a clean-up took place on the plastic littered shores of historic Virginia Key Beach.

A group of young friends went out fishing just after New Year's Day when an unexpected real-life National Geographic moment happened right in front their faces.

On a brisk South Florida December morning, Local 10 News' Louis Aguirre joined a team of divers in Fort Lauderdale.

The final Don't Trash Our Treasure of 2022 takes a look back at the stories that made the biggest impact over the past year.

With Biscayne Bay still recovering from the October fish kill, it's another reminder that our bay is at a dangerous tipping point.

South Florida communities are taking action and speaking up about the dangers to our environment, as people continue releasing balloons as part of celebrations to honor their loved ones.

We're celebrating the 75th anniversary of Everglades National Park.

Police arrested a southwest Miami-Dade man on a felony charge and cited three others after a group of boaters were caught on camera trashing an island in Biscayne National Park last month.

The staff at the Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park was expecting Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday in Key Biscayne.

Bright and early Saturday morning, a small flotilla of volunteers left the marina at Mattheson Hammock in Coral Gables.

Global leaders recently agreed to extend protections for more than two-thirds of the world's shark population, with numbers rapidly dwindling because of the insatiable demand for shark fins.

There are still no arrests from a story Local 10 News exclusively reported on Tuesday about boaters caught on camera illegally dumping trash on a small island inside Biscayne National Park.

Cell phone video from this past Sunday on an island in Biscayne National Park shows a group of litterbugs trashing the protected site after a day of partying on their boats and jet skis.

It is now down to wire for those looking to uphold Miami-Dade's Urban Development Boundary and protect land environmentalists say is needed for Everglades restoration and saving Biscayne Bay.

This week we bring you a surprising twist to Don’t Trash Our Treasure as we went out to cover one story and stumbled upon an even bigger more pressing situation.

The General Manager of Miami Seaquarium who watches over Lolita, a 56-year-old orca had encouraging news on Wednesday about her health on Wednesday.

After yet another massive fish kill in Biscayne Bay caused by widespread pollution, researchers are working to assess the damage.

Piero Gardinali, who is obsessed with water quality, has been watching Biscayne Bay for decades and he was alarmed on Friday while gathering data about a new fish kill.

Experts reported Thursday in Miami-Dade County that the fish kill was in Biscayne Bay’s northern basin — mostly in the discharge areas of canal C-8 off Miami Shores and C-7 off Little River.

Here is a sobering fact: Right now the United States throws away up to 11.3 million tons of textile waste each year. That’s about 2,100 pieces of clothing every second of the day. Is it any wonder that our addiction to fast fashion is one of the biggest contributors to pollution on the planet?

More than 1,000 fish died in the northern Biscayne Bay basin on Wednesday in Miami-Dade County.

Pollution is killing our ocean, which is filled with more than 150 million tons of plastic.

It is the weekend after Hurricane Ian ravaged the southern Gulf Coast and while South Florida was spared from the storm's devastation, scientists with Florida International University's Institute of Environment are making sure water management didn't unleash a different type of catastrophe.

Last Saturday, hundreds of volunteers sweated it out on the South Florida sand to clean up our beautiful beaches.

If this summer's sweltering heat or the unusually quiet peak of hurricane season hasn't convinced you, South Florida is already experiencing the effects of climate change.

More and more Floridians are buying boats and enjoying our unlimited access to the ocean, but not everyone is a responsible boat owner.

At the very beginning of the pandemic, a new experiment launched in South Florida brought joy and peace to millions of people around the world that were locked down in their homes.

This week, headlines screamed that extreme heat will be a fact of life for over 100 million Americans in the next 30 years.

Hollywood resident Manon Weise is on a mission, looking to inspire and educate the masses creating works of art out of trash to show us all what we’re doing to our planet.

Concerns are growing after Miami city commissioners approved a plan to move forward with a pilot program that will create a homeless encampment on Virginia Key, next to land that has been deemed as critically endangered.

Polluters be warned, Miami-Dade County is not playing around.

Miami is just one of several South Florida cities stepping up to try and fight the growing litter program with a new technology.

Nearly a dozen bull sharks were killed last weekend in a contest to see who could catch the biggest.

There’s a storm of controversy brewing over Palm Beach County this weekend.

Dramatic images have been going viral on social media showing our planet -- specifically our ocean -- in the grips of a serious plastic pollution crisis.