<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/13/godfather-microplastics-richard-thompson-how-to-stop-them>
"In September 1993, during a beach clean on the Isle of Man, Richard Thompson
noticed thousands of multicoloured fragments at his feet, looking like sand.
While his colleagues filled sacks with crisp packets, fishing rope, plastic
bags and bottles, Thompson became transfixed by the particles.
They were so tiny that they did not fit any category in the spreadsheet where
volunteers recorded their findings. “Yet it was pretty clear to me that the
most abundant item on the beach was the smallest stuff,” Thompson says.
Over the next 10 years, after completing a PhD and going on to teach marine
biology at Newcastle, Southampton and Plymouth universities, Prof Thompson
spent his spare time beach-hopping, often enlisting students to help him gather
dozens of sand samples in tinfoil trays.
Back in the lab, they would confirm what Thompson had first suspected: the
particles were all pieces of plastic, no larger than grains of sand, and
ubiquitous along the UK coastline. It was pollution on a whole new scale."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
