Meet Dr. Winnie Courtene-Jones, a plastic pollution expert working within the University of Plymouth’s International Marine Litter Research Unit, where she leads scientific investigation for eXXpedition, an all-female team sailing around the world researching plastic pollution.

Microplastics are everywhere. Every sample I have analysed, from sediments to fish tissue, has contained tens if not hundreds of plastic particles of different shapes and sizes. I work as a plastic pollution researcher at the University of Toronto, where a large part of my work involves testing and developing methods to analyse microplastics from environmental samples.

Lola Paradinas is a passionate PhD researcher working at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), based in Oban on the west coast of Scotland. She grew up on a sailing boat for the first ten years of her life circumnavigating the globe. Being in constant contact with the sea, she learnt to appreciate, respect and protect the marine environment.

At the age of 12, I was on vacation and asked to assist in an emergency wild sea turtle nest removal mission. That day was the a catalyst of my career and my life to protecting nature as a field biologist. I left my home during the pandemic and travelled across the US to work under the National Park Service as a Kemp’s Ridley Biotech. So yeah, I love sea turtles. But I can’t be fully on board with the straw ban.

Plastic derived from the Greek plastikos meaning ‘capable of being shaped or moulded’, is a long lasting, cheap and strong product that can be found everywhere. The miracle material with its ideal properties for manufacturing is at the heart of a global epidemic. The properties that once made plastic an ideal product also make it a gravely problematic one, a result of our throwaway culture. To date, over 300 million tons of plastic is produced each year, of which 8 million tons finds it’s way into our oceans yearly.