Rewilding Europe is a river-restoration project working to preserve rivers as biodiversity hotspots and prevent damage from human activity. Since Rewilding Europe was founded, its projects have stretched across the continent, including to countries like Spain Italy, Bulgaria, and Sweden and was recently awarded a grant of £4.1m to scale up its work.

In France, some members of the shipping industry are using sailing ships run on wind power to deliver cargo in an effort to reduce fuel use, pollution, and carbon emissions.

Baghdad resident Murtadha Al-Tameemi started organizing weekly clean ups at the banks of the Tigris river earlier this year, but it soon became a grassroots movement called Clean Iraq and encouraged residents to organize similar events across the country. In a place long-affected by war, it serves not just as an important effort and opportunity to save the river but to rebuild peace, cooperation, and a sense of normalcy.

Ocean Farms Supply makes and sells oyster harvest bags out of biodegradable materials, rather than plastic, to help cut down pollution. The company sells the bags locally but has also distributed them to other regions like Mexico, California, and Florida, so far replacing the use of 14 linear miles of the previously used polypropylene mesh.

A pilot experiment in Canada shows that adding a filter on a washing machine can prevent microfibers from entering the wastewater system and ending up in marine ecosystems. After installing these filters on machines in a community, there was a 41 percent decrease of microfibers in the washing machine liquid waste. This will not keep all microfibers from ending up in the environment, but legislators are working on passing bills requiring manufacturers to get these filters installed on new machines.

A nonprofit with a barge and a 10-person crew picks up trash and plastics across seven rivers in the U.S. Midwest. In one year, Living Lands and Waters collected over half a million pounds of trash. Over the years, they’ve attracted hundreds of thousands of volunteers to help their operation. “No matter who you are, where you’re from, how old, young or what political party you belong to – it doesn’t matter, because no one likes seeing garbage in the river,” said the cofounder.

Oceans Habitats, Inc. has built and installed over 1,600 mini-reefs in Florida to bring aquatic life back to the canals and to improve the water quality. Water filters through these artificial reefs made out of propylene pipe and boosts the variety of fish and marine life species. These reefs can help grow over 300 fish a year. The organization is looking to make the reefs out of recycled material to be more environmentally friendly.

Minnesota farmers are closely following the debate over how best to manage nitrates. Many farmers—no one knows the number exactly–are already taking action to lower their use of nitrates, which can contaminate water.