Understanding the plastic plague in Earth's ocean
Rebecca Daniel helps us understand the massive, complex challenge of plastic ocean pollution and the hope there is for solutions.
Rebecca is a marine biologist, a science communicator, and director of The Marine Diaries. She has an enormous passion for our ocean and telling its many stories to educate and inspire.
Rebecca tells us about Big Island Hawaii and her favorite experience night diving with manta rays.
Rebecca helps us understand the role the ocean plays on planet Earth, it's interplay with our lives, ecosystems at large, and more.
It's difficult to get an accurate answer to this question, for a variety of reasons. The best estimates are around 150 million tons (2015), and it's increasing at an alarming rate (which is bad, very bad).
Costa pauses to remind us that while the numbers and description of this challenge seem wild, terrifying, and insurmountable, and the very nature of innovators is to face impossible challenges and solve them.
What kinds of plastic are in our oceans, how large and small? What is the variety of this kind of pollution?
Rebecca talks to us about how plastic affects marine life, how it moves through the food chain, and in general the dynamics of this pollutant for marine life.
Rebecca shares a little bit about how the plastic ocean problem emerged and developed, and calls out fishing nets and packaging as some of the main culprits.
Rebecca shares her thoughts on potential solutions to the plastic ocean problem.
At Clean Ocean International headquarters in Santa Cruz, we had the opportunity to see a plastic-to-fuel conversion technology demonstration.
Costa spells out the monstrous size and scale of the plastic pollution problem, and Rebecca shares with us what gives her hope, beyond her unbelievable optimism 😉
