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Saturday, May 28, 2016

Plastic is everywhere

Earlier this week I started to count my phytoplankton under the microscope.
Just for fun I've started to take a count of plastic too.

In every single one of my samples I have so far found plastic.
I've settled about 25 ml to count, and of that I only count half of my chamber. So really I'm only looking at about 10 ml.
And in every single one I find traces of plastic!
It's unbelievable that in such a tiny random ocean water sample - so much plastic can be found. It just emphasizes the enormous problem we are facing with plastic and other pollutants in the ocean.

#noplasticinnature



To follow up on that I recently went on a short hike around Lake Alpine up in Stanislaus National Forest in California. On my 7 km hike I found the following:
  • 3 plastic bottles
  • 1 ziplog bag 
  • 1 plastic bag
  • 1 Cliff Bar wrapper
  • 4 hard candy wrappers
  • Bottom plastic from a cigarette pack  
  • Half of an old label 
  • Expired Macy's coupon 
  • Half a shoe sole 
  • 1 plastic spoon  
  • A pair of glasses
  • A pair of sun glasses

It seems like humanity is determined to make their presence known in the geologic record!

#leavenotrace





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