Episode 16: Ocean Conservancy

Wild For Change

On a new Wild For Change podcast, we will be speaking about plastic pollution with three experts from Ocean Conservancy;

Dr. Britta Baechler, Senior Manager, Oceans Plastics Research will be discussing the overall problem with plastics, how microplastics form and why they are problematic.

Robyn Albritton, Senior Manager, International Coastal Cleanup, will be discussing plastics in the environment and ways Ocean Conservancy is working to clean them up.

Dr. Anja Brandon, U.S. Plastics Policy Analyst, will look at plastic from a policy lens and show us ways we can tackle the plastic pollution problem in our daily lives.

Plastic does so much for us as it is found in airbags, helmets, keeps our food safe and fresh, and helps lighten loads for transportation, reducing carbon emissions and saving fuel.

But there is a downside to plastic. We use a lot of it and it’s difficult to recycle. Globally, we produce about 400 million tons of plastic each year and only 10-13% of it gets recycled worldwide. The environmental lifetimes of common products such as plastic bags, Styrofoam cups and other single-use items remain largely unknown. What we do know is that plastics never actually go away- they break up into smaller and smaller pieces but persist in the environment indefinitely.

Approximately 11 million metric tons of plastic ends up in our oceans each year. Since plastic is ending up in our waters, marine life is ingesting it. Plastic has been found in 60% of sea birds and 100% of sea turtles studied because they mistake plastics for food. We now know that nearly 1,300 marine species ingest plastics, and that number continues to climb as scientists pursue new research avenues.

In this podcast, we will learn;

• What microplastics are and why they are so pervasive in our environment and harming wildlife
• What is a global microplastic cycle
• How these pollutants impact human health
• Learn how to help with International Coastal Cleanups
• What the Clean Swell App is and how we can use it to help with plastic pollution
• About federal policies like the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act and Save Our Seas (S.O.S.) 2.0 Act to help reduce plastic pollution
• What Extended Producer Responsibility is
• What Bottle Bills are and how they help with increasing rates of recycling plastic
• What we can do to reduce plastic consumption in our daily lives

To learn more of Ocean Conservancy’s work click here.

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