By now, many people know that the ocean is filled with plastic debris.  A recent study estimates that the amount of plastic waste that washes off land into the ocean each year is approximately 8 million metric tons. Jenna Jambeck, the study’s lead author, helps us...

They’re all ways humans are ingesting microplastics It was just two decades ago that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a vast circulating accumulation of plastic debris in the North Pacific, was discovered by accident. Since then, plastic pollution has been found to be...

It is impossible to make a complete list of the environmental impacts of the current human population, a population that is a thousand-fold larger than the mean population of other similar-sized mammals. One set of influences has involved our use of the seas for food....

During this expedition, Algalita collected plastic pollution samples across the Equatorial Currents, the South Pacific Subtropical Gyre and at various stations along the Chilean coast in order to strengthen the existing data set. In addition to quantitative analysis,...

Check out all 2016/2017 South Pacific Expedition Blogs here. Remember eating sprinkles on cupcakes as a kid? The tiny little colorful sugary beads… So colorful and delicious! And always associated with good times… but, if you spilled them, man oh man, what a task it...

Check out all 2016/2017 South Pacific Expedition Blogs here. By 1700 yesterday evening our Manta Trawl samples were diminishing in micro-plastic (≤5mm) quantities and our macro -debris collection (≥20mm) was nil. A positive sign!? Well, yes in some ways! It is telling...

In August 2014, we returned with a team of scientists from six weeks at sea conducting research in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — one of five major garbage patches drifting in the oceans north and south of the Equator at the latitude of our great terrestrial...

We spent the night moored to the approximately 7 ton island of Hi-Zex brand buoys made by Sanshin Kako Ltd. The ropes dangling below the buoys were carefully spread apart and had scallop shells inserted, apparently as a recruitment site for oysters. When the tsunami...