Responsible actions toward the aquatic environment include reducing plastic waste, disposing of chemicals properly, conserving water, choosing sustainable seafood, and preventing nutrient runoff from reaching waterways. These aren’t abstract ideals. Each one addresses a specific, measurable threat to rivers, lakes, and oceans, and most can be practiced at home without special equipment or expertise.
Reduce Plastic at the Source
The world produces roughly 350 million tonnes of plastic waste every year. Of that, about 1.7 million tonnes ends up in the ocean, primarily carried there by rivers. That 1.7 million tonnes sounds like a small fraction (around 0.5% of total plastic waste), but it’s enough to choke marine life, break into microplastics, and contaminate food chains for decades.
The most effective thing you can do is cut plastic use before it becomes waste. Reusable bags, bottles, and containers eliminate single-use items that are most likely to escape waste systems. Recycling helps, but preventing the plastic from existing in the first place is more reliable, since a significant share of recyclable plastic never actually gets recycled.
One often-overlooked source of plastic pollution is your laundry. Synthetic fabrics like polyester and nylon shed tiny fibers every wash cycle, and those fibers flow straight into wastewater. Aftermarket washing machine filters can capture between 52% and 86% of these microfibers on the first use, and their efficiency climbs to 83% to 99% after repeated cycles as the filter mesh builds up captured material. If you wear synthetic clothing regularly, a laundry filter is one of the highest-impact purchases you can make for aquatic health.
Dispose of Chemicals and Medications Properly
Pouring unused medications down the sink or toilet sends them directly into waterways. Wastewater treatment plants are not designed to remove pharmaceutical compounds, so prescription and over-the-counter drugs pass through treatment systems and enter rivers and lakes largely intact. In homes with septic systems, flushed medications can leach into groundwater. The EPA specifically advises against flushing or draining pharmaceuticals except in very limited circumstances.
Instead, use drug take-back programs offered by pharmacies and local government. Many police departments also accept unused medications year-round. The same principle applies to herbicides, pesticides, and household cleaning products. Choosing nontoxic alternatives when possible and following label instructions for disposal keeps these chemicals out of storm drains and, ultimately, out of aquatic ecosystems.
Be Careful With Fertilizers and Yard Chemicals
Excess nitrogen and phosphorus from lawn fertilizers wash into streams and rivers during rainstorms, feeding massive algal blooms that deplete oxygen and kill fish. This nutrient pollution is one of the largest threats to freshwater and coastal ecosystems in the United States.
You can reduce your contribution by applying fertilizer sparingly and only when your soil actually needs it (a simple soil test from your local extension office will tell you). Avoid fertilizing before heavy rain. Planting trees, shrubs, or native grasses along the edges of your property, especially near any water body, creates a natural buffer that absorbs nutrients before they reach the water. Cover crops and ground cover plants also prevent bare soil from eroding and carrying nutrients downstream. Even a strip of dense vegetation a few feet wide makes a measurable difference.
Choose Reef-Safe Sunscreen (Carefully)
Common sunscreen ingredients can damage coral reefs even at low concentrations. Recent research testing sunscreens on hard and soft corals from the Maldives found that products labeled “reef-safe” or “coral-friendly” are not always harmless. One sunscreen containing zinc oxide, a mineral UV filter often marketed as a safer alternative, caused 96% tissue loss in two hard coral species and severe pigmentation loss across all tested species. Other products in the same study caused only mild or no damage.
The label “reef-safe” has no regulated definition, so it doesn’t guarantee the product is safe for marine life. Your best options are mineral sunscreens that have been independently tested, or simply wearing UV-protective clothing and staying in shade when possible, which eliminates the issue entirely.
Conserve Water at Home
Using less water directly reduces the volume of runoff and wastewater that flows into oceans and rivers. Every gallon that goes down your drain has to be treated (or, in many older systems, overflows untreated during heavy use). Shorter showers, fixing leaks, and running dishwashers and washing machines only with full loads all reduce the load on treatment systems. In areas with combined sewer systems, where stormwater and sewage share the same pipes, water conservation during rain events is especially important because excess flow triggers raw sewage overflows into local waterways.
Know Where Your Storm Drains Lead
Storm drains in most cities flow directly to the nearest river, bay, or ocean with no treatment whatsoever. Anything that enters a storm drain, including motor oil, pet waste, cigarette butts, and litter, arrives in the water supply intact. The EPA supports storm drain stenciling programs that mark drains with messages like “No Dumping, Drains to Ocean” to remind people of this direct connection. You can help by never pouring anything into a street gutter, picking up litter near drains, and cleaning up pet waste before rain washes it away.
Support Sustainable Seafood
Choosing sustainably sourced fish and shellfish supports fishing practices that protect marine ecosystems rather than depleting them. The Marine Stewardship Council’s certification standard now requires evidence of effective management performance, rigorous protection of endangered species and vulnerable habitats, comprehensive measures to prevent ghost fishing (abandoned nets and gear that keep trapping marine life), explicit harvest strategies, and effective exclusion of shark finning. Look for the MSC blue label or check regional seafood guides before buying. Restaurants and grocery stores increasingly list sourcing information, making it easier to choose responsibly caught options.
Join Community Water Monitoring
Citizen science programs let you contribute real data that government agencies use to track pollution and direct cleanup efforts. Volunteers across the country collect water quality samples that help resource managers identify pollution hotspots and measure progress. The EPA supports several specific programs you can join from home or in your community.
The Cyanobacteria Monitoring Collaborative offers three levels of involvement: reporting algal blooms through the bloomWatch app, mapping species through cyanoScope, and tracking seasonal population changes through cyanoMonitoring. These are simple tasks that provide crucial data on harmful algal blooms. State-level programs like South Carolina’s Adopt-a-Stream and the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative train volunteers to collect water quality and habitat data in their local watersheds. In Massachusetts, the Charles River Monthly Monitoring program combines water sampling with hands-on restoration projects like invasive species removal.
You don’t need a science background to participate. Most programs provide training and equipment, and the data you collect feeds directly into decisions about where to focus pollution control efforts and how to allocate restoration funding.