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Beyond Plastics: The Hidden Dangers of Marine Pollution · How To Protect The Ocean

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What do you know about marine pollution? Probably not
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a lot because it's not something that we discuss as
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a whole. We discuss plastic pollution, that's probably the major
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marine pollution that we discuss. We don't talk a lot about toxins and
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algae and all this other kind of stuff and chemicals in the water and
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so forth, but not to worry because you can find
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out everything you need to know by buying
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the book marine pollution what everyone needs to know
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it's the second edition and i have dr judith weiss
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who is the author of this uh... addition and
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she was the author of the first edition and fun fact Judith
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was my first ever interview, my first ever
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episode here on the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was called Speak
0:45
Up for Blue at that point, but now it's called How to Protect the Ocean.
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It's been 10 years later and she is here to talk about
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her new edition because we talked about the first edition. Now we're going to talk about the second edition
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and I can't wait for you to hear this. So let's start the show. Hey
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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
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your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how
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you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by
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taking action. And on today's episode, we are
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talking to Dr. Judith Weiss who
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has written a book called marine pollution what everyone needs to
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know the second edition and like I said in the pre-intro This
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is a very special episode for me kind of brings me back to
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my first ever episode that I published with Judith talking
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about marine pollution what everybody needs to know the first edition and
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I love the book because of this it's not just your regular
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textbook now I You know, Judith has one
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hell of a fulfilling career in academia. She has published
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multiple, multiple journal articles on marine ecology, on
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water quality, seagrass, salt marshes, all these different types
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of systems, plastic pollution, and so forth. And she
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turned to writing books. And a lot of the times, I get skeptical when somebody
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from the academic field starts to publish books for
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a general audience. But she has done it perfectly. she
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is to
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help with marine pollution. And I think that's something that's extremely, extremely
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helpful. And it's something that we need to do more. And to
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be honest, like it's something that we talk about a lot here in terms of helping
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and how you can help and how you can feel optimistic about the ocean. But
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this book is something that I highly recommend for anybody who
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wants to know more about how important water
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quality is, whether it be freshwater, whether it be brackish water, which
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is a mix of ocean and freshwater or ocean water. It
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doesn't matter. Marine pollution affects everything. It affects everybody. Especially
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when we talk about plastics, it actually affects our own health. In
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terms of now we're seeing it in the air, we're seeing it in the water, we're seeing it
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in our drinking water. It's everywhere. And so we
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need to do something more to reduce it. And to do the first thing you
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need to do is inform yourselves. And to inform yourself, you need to buy
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this book to inform yourself on marine pollution. But I
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want you to listen to this interview because a lot of it is focused around you
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know, marine plastics and marine debris, something that's really, really important.
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But we talked a little bit about algae, the recent episode
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that I covered about the toxins that were released
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from algae, from dinoflagellate. in Florida
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that affected 80 species, killing 80 different species of
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fish. So we're going to talk a lot about that, and
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we just talk about how policy is important, what
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to look for in the upcoming elections, whether you're in the States or
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potentially in Canada, which might happen a little earlier than we expected, earlier
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than 2025, or probably earlier than October 2025, I should say. But yeah. I
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think this is gonna be one of those episodes where you can be like, man, this is really, really
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good. Judith is awesome. I can't wait for you to listen to this interview. So here's
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the interview with Judith Weiss talking about her book, Marine Pollution,
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What Everyone Needs to Know, second edition. Enjoy, and
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I will talk to you after. Hey, Judith, welcome back
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to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about
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Right on. This is a very special episode for me. Not
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only is it great to have Dr. Judith Weiss on the podcast,
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but Judith, you were my first ever interview for
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this podcast. That's 10 years ago. Actually, it was even further back than
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that because it took me a while to get it published. So we have
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known each other for over a decade. We've met in
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person, not in the US, not because we're actually closer than we
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think, but actually in Borneo, in Malaysia, at a conference. And
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that's sometimes how it works in the marine world. But you have
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released a second edition of Marine Pollution, which is
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the reason why you were on the podcast in the first place talking
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about marine pollution, a book that I absolutely love and I recommend to
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a lot of people. I think I actually just lent it out to someone recent. in
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the last couple of months. But it's the one I always tell people to read
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because it's a book that's really easy to understand for
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people who don't know much about the ocean or about marine pollution and
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the pollution that it faces. And so I love the fact that
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you came out with a second one. There's probably a lot to update, so I can't wait
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to get into that. But before we do, why don't you just let people know and
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remind the audience, the real fans, the ones that
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have been here since day one, why don't you just remind
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Hi, I've been a professor of marine
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biology at Rutgers through an entire
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career. I'm now technically retired but still very
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busy. A lot of that time
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I studied aspects of pollution. I
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worked in parts of northern New Jersey that
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were highly industrialized and had all kinds of
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metals and organic contaminants as a
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result of a century or so of
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heavy industry without any rules and regulations about
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what these industries should do with their wastes. They
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were just dumping them right into the water. So
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we did lots of studies of how
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the mixture of all these contaminants, what
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kinds of effects it had, on the animals that lived there
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and stuff like that. But
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in addition to the original research, we published
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lots of academic papers, I was also interested
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in writing books for the general public. That was a pretty recent,
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I didn't do that through the career, I started that maybe 15 years
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ago, or getting closer
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to 20 years ago. having
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published a book about salt
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marshes, a book about fish, a book about crabs, I
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noticed that Oxford University Press was
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doing a series called X
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colon, What Everyone Needs to Know. It could
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be any topic from history, social
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science, English literature, any field at
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all. including science. So I
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thought, well, and I wrote and asked, would they be
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interested in one on marine pollution? And
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that's how it all came about a decade
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ago. And then about
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two years ago, maybe a year and a half, two years
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ago, I got an email from the guy who had
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been my editor And he said, would you be interested
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in doing another, a second edition of
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this book? I thought about it and
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thought, yeah, there's a lot of things that have happened since
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then. And so that's what I spent
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a fair amount of time doing, was revising the
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I love it. I love it. I can't wait to get into this book because you have a
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number of other books that you have written. Going
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from a career in academia and looking
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at applications and looking how water is
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affected by disturbances and like you
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said, unchecked, dumping unchecked, any
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kind of whatever we decide to do
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as humans during that time. What made you
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decide to start writing these books? Like you said, you
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kind of did it towards the end of your career. Was it something of like, it's
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just more, look, I've learned so much, I need to hit a
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different audience, because you have publications and so forth. So I'm sure you've,
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you know, contributed to the scientific community. What
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I never had thought about it. A friend asked
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my husband if he would be interested in working with
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him on a book about salt marshes. And
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my husband said, nah. I was there and I said, yes,
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I would. And we
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talked back and forth for several months and it turned out that he was
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very busy and really had no time to do it after all. And
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then I went and found another co-author because this was
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my first venture into writing books for the general public
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rather than a technical, scientific-type journal
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articles. So I found a co-author who
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helped me with the writing to make it
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more user-friendly writing for a general audience,
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and that was the Saltmarsh book. And then it kind of went
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from there. So it was a total accident. It was nothing I
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thought to myself, yes, I should write some book. If
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he hadn't approached my husband about writing this book, probably
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So it's just being at the right place at the right time. And it must
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have hit something, like triggered something that intrigued you about
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writing to sort of a general audience, a non-scientific
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audience. What about that was important to you to follow? Because
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I mean, taking on a book as you know, is a
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huge, it's a bigger project than a lot of people think. What
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triggered that in you to be like, I want to speak to the
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I just thought it was very important to do that. You
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know, scientists can't be just in a little clump
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talking to each other. The general public needs
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to know, particularly with all these environmental topics
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that lead into policy choices and voting choices
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and everything about being a good citizen of
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the world and being concerned about the state of
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the environment of this planet. And I
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had taught courses for non-science majors.
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So I felt, you know, I was capable
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of doing this. And sort
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of that's where it was. It's sort of part of my, or
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whatever on behalf of the environment to get more people to
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understand the problems and want to act
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Got you. Now, you've had an extensive career over decades. A
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lot of the times, talking about science
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or talking about marine ecology was not really
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looked favorable or people weren't incentivized to do so.
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As you started writing these books, were you worried about what
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colleagues would have said or what the public would have said in terms of,
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you know, trying to attack any of the books that you said, or you were just like, no, I
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I had no concerns like that. I
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was still publishing papers. You know, I
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was very close to retirement. So no,
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no worries at all. I didn't have any
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worries earlier on in my career when I
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was an activist. The
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university did not harass me, did not bother me
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Can you elaborate just a little bit on that activism part? What were you
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Back in the early days when I was very young, I was involved in the
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women's movement. It was about feminism, but
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later on, I got involved in
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public policy about the environment. I
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went down to Washington as a science
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policy fellow for the American Association of
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Advancement of Science. They always sponsor people
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to go to Washington. And I worked in the Senate. And
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that sort of started me off into policy issues. And
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Rutgers did not have a problem with that. They actually gave me
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an award about 20 years
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ago, a policy.
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I don't remember what it was called, but it was something
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dealing with policy, not just your academic. I
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And that's fine. I think what's interesting is
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seeing someone in academia take that stance and being like, look, I
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have all this information and knowledge and experience in
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marine ecology and looking at how it's been affecting you
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know, our, our water systems. But then you go above
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and beyond and just be like, Okay, now I'm interested in looking how policy shapes
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that. So I think as scientists throughout our careers, we get,
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we almost get to like certain epiphanies during our career, where
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the first you want to start off a lot of people academia, and then let's do
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research, and let's do this. And then you start noticing things as you learn. more
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and more about the environment the things that are affecting you realize that
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there are certain times where the environment takes a backseat to
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you know what happens out there you know and and and
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to policies and so forth and a lot of times things get built over over
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natural land salt marshes mud flats and so forth and
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You realize that well I should have maybe I could have stood up for that a little bit Then
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you start to get a little bit more of an actress as you get later on in your career
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or even mid-career depending on the person. So I think
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that's like a fair assessment, right? Have you seen that happen with
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It really started mid-career with me. It was in the 80s.
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I haven't seen a lot of my colleagues go
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there. But I certainly have met many
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other people there who were and still are
15:28
academics one place or another. So
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there's a good collection of academics
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in some sort of environmental field that are out
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there trying to improve the environment one
15:46
That's a great insight. It's
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interesting to see a book come out on marine pollution. We
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hear about and I talk a lot about issues
15:59
that are facing the ocean. You've got fisheries. You've got climate change.
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You have coastal development. You have marine plastics,
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which is a water quality and marine pollution issue. But
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it never gets qualified. When
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you hear about plastics, you hear about plastics as the pollution. And it is a pollutant, and
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it's a big problem. But you don't hear the term marine pollution
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a lot being covered in the media or even like even on my
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podcast. I rarely say the word marine pollution unless I'm
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referring to your books. I was like, if you want to know about marine pollution, you
16:32
got a great guide here. You know, why do
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you think like people aren't talking about marine pollution
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other than like say things like plastics as much in sort of the
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Well, plastics is the one thing that is in
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the news a lot. I
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don't know if I'm going to regret saying this, but it's the
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biggest problem that has not yet been addressed.
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Well, I can't. That's not true. Climate. Climate is
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being addressed, but not enough. And
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I include a chapter in climate. That's not typical in
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a marine pollution book to have a chapter on
17:19
climate. I also have a chapter on invasive species, which
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I generally not thought of as pollution, but
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could be considered biological pollution. Animal
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or plant that's not been there, they're making
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problems. I lost
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That's funny, you talked a lot about what I asked. In terms of marine
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Plastics is the biggest deal these days. It's what I've
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been spending a great deal of my time on. Not
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just in the research world, but in the policy world
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as well. There
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is a scientist coalition for an effective plastics
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treaty. which is a worldwide network of
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a couple hundred scientists from all over,
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some of whom can go to the
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negotiating sessions for the treaty. The
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last one was in Ottawa. I
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haven't gone to any, but I have friends that I've
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made there some of whom I have not met face
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to face, but I still consider them friends because we have meetings
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and we write position papers and policy briefs
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and all this sort of thing. And
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so I've not physically been
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there, but I've got friends in this coalition
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who go there. And as
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an objective science, bringing
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science, the science about plastics, to
19:08
the negotiators. Because without the
19:12
scientific community, they would be hearing only
19:16
from the lobbyists of the plastics industry, who
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show up at those meetings in large numbers. There
19:24
were 200 of them at the Ottawa
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meetings. So that's far more
19:31
than the scientists who were able to come. But
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we still don't know. We have one more meeting left in Busan,
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Korea in a few months. That's supposed to be
19:45
the final meeting where they hammer out the final part of
19:48
the treaty. And the scientist coalition is
19:52
putting out policy briefs on
19:55
specific issues that we hope
19:59
the negotiators read. These are also written. for
20:03
the lay, just like my book. For the non-scientists,
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the negotiators are probably mostly all
20:11
lawyers. And so
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it's the same idea, writing short two-pagers
20:21
on specific issues about
20:25
plastic pollution. So I'm involved with this, as
20:29
well as still writing papers. generating
20:34
new data, I'm retired, I don't have a lab, I don't have graduate students,
20:38
all that. But I
20:41
still can write reviews and critiques and
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work with teams of other people about
20:50
various issues about plastic. That's what I've been focusing
20:55
on most of the time over the past decade, I'd
20:59
Yeah, and you've been very active. I've seen you on the, there's a listserv,
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the Marine Debris listserv, and you've been very active on there. I've seen
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you very active on social media talking and sharing information
21:10
about marine plastics. And it's
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really interesting, you know, looking at the book and how
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you write the book for a non-scientific audience. A
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lot of things come out about marine plastics within sort
21:25
of like the general context of things. The big
21:28
thing I hear, it's almost like people are just sick
21:32
of hearing about plastic straws. As you know, a plastic straw
21:35
was pulled out of a sea turtle's nose. It was actually done, the video
21:40
was taken by a friend of mine, Christine Figgener, as well as
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the person who took it out was Dr. Christine Figgener
21:46
and Dr. Nathan Robinson that took it out. And then later on,
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you know, about four months later, he took out, he found an olive ridley turtle
21:53
with a plastic fork in his nose, took
21:57
that out just about four months after that. Fork in his nose? Fork, it's the
22:00
same kind of thing, he thought it was a straw. He was actually out, it
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was four months, it was just about 70 kilometers south of where he was, and
22:08
somebody, it was like a tourist attraction when all the ridleys come
22:11
in to lay their eggs, and people were walking around and
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Um, he was doing, he was doing, uh, epibiotic, or
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epi, epibiome, um, study, and
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somebody pulled him aside and said, hey, there's something wrong with this turtle, and he was bleeding
22:25
from his nose again, and he said, oh, probably a
22:29
straw, and then ended up taking out a plastic fork. You
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know, and it was literally folded within its nasal cavity
22:36
in one nasal cavity, and when he took it out, it folded up, and he's like, yeah,
22:42
And so, you know, but- He must have inhaled it
22:48
Yeah, it must have been. Yeah, I don't know how that happened.
22:52
What Nathan kind of assumed was
22:56
that all of Ridleys tend to experiment a
22:59
little bit in terms of how they eat. And so they bite on
23:03
something first before they realize that it's not food. This one, the
23:06
way it was in, the water may have looked like a shrimp. And so when
23:09
it went, it may have just gotten it in the folds, and then as it cost
23:13
or something try to get it out and went through its naval cavity he thinks so obviously
23:18
awful stories to see and it made a huge impact at that time it
23:21
kind of brought the plastic straw to the forefront of the
23:25
the the plastic you know the the clean up plastic movement
23:29
And now I constantly hear people joking about plastic straws, like I'm sick of
23:33
plastic straws and this and that. And they're just like,
23:36
we're not worried about a plastic straw. The way I always say is it's
23:40
sort of like a symbol of
23:43
our plastic problem that we have in this world. And this is just an
23:47
example. This poor sea turtle, both sea turtles, had this
23:50
in their mouth, in their nose. So I guess the question
23:54
is that I have for you as I go on this long, long rant, is,
23:58
you know, you hear people talk about this, you hear politicians talk
24:02
about this, where they're sick of like, oh, plastic straw
24:05
is not an issue, and this and that, and they kind of like, it seems like it's
24:09
taken a turn for, in the opposite direction of
24:12
how people are looking at plastics. How as
24:16
scientists and science communicators, do we combat them and kind
24:19
of bring them over and just be like, Hey, no, there is actually a problem. It's
24:23
not just start and ends with with one plastic straw. How
24:26
do we convince people of that? Or
24:31
I don't know how to convince people who are skeptical
24:36
about all of this. But there have been plenty of cases, for
24:40
example, of dead whales washing up
24:44
with a stomach full of plastic, which
24:48
is perhaps more upsetting
24:54
than the turtle with the straw. They're feeding
24:58
on so many animals that feed on plastic pieces,
25:03
and they can't get regular
25:06
food. Their stomach's all clogged with the plastic. And
25:10
they basically starve to death. It happens, I
25:14
think, much more frequently than
25:18
the turtles with the straw or fork in their nose.
25:24
And whales are something that people tend to relate
25:28
to. But that's
25:31
with the big stuff. I
25:35
have a new chapter in this book about
25:39
microplastics, which were a very small
25:42
part of the chapter about, I
25:46
guess it was Marine Litter was called, the original book.
25:51
Microplastics were just beginning to be studied.
25:56
And now, there's an enormous literature.
26:00
Every year, thousands of new papers are
26:03
coming out about microplastics. which
26:08
are tiny pieces coming from fragmentation
26:13
of all sorts of things. I mean, people
26:16
used to think it was, you know, just styrofoam boxes
26:20
breaking up. That's a small part of it. A
26:24
lot of places have now banned styrofoam. So,
26:28
I mean, we've had progress in certain areas in certain
26:31
places. But the
26:35
microplastics There's four major
26:39
sources of them. One
26:42
is textiles is perhaps the
26:46
most important. Synthetic
26:50
clothing in the washing machine sheds
26:56
tiny fibers. If a
26:59
whole lot of them collect, you might call it lint. Right. This
27:03
happens every time it's washed, and it happens also when it
27:06
dries in a dryer. So
27:11
that's one of the major sources is
27:16
our clothing. And carpets, too, also shed microfibers.
27:20
These are long, thin, fibrous pieces
27:24
of plastic. Another source
27:27
is tires. Tires. Tire wear. You
27:31
know, after driving on a tire for
27:35
some years, the tread is not as thick as it used to
27:38
be, right? And eventually the tread is worn down. That
27:44
didn't evaporate into thin air. It shed tiny particles
27:48
onto the road as you're driving the car. And
27:52
these tiny particles When
27:55
it rains, it runs off into the water, down
27:59
storm drains, and gets into the water.
28:06
And the tires have,
28:11
I should say, back to the fibers from the clothes. It's
28:14
not just an issue of a tiny piece
28:18
of plastic. A tiny piece of plastic contain chemicals,
28:22
toxic chemicals. that are built into
28:26
them to make the plastic have certain
28:29
characteristics to make them harder or
28:32
make them more malleable or whatever, however the product
28:37
is supposed to be. So a lot of these chemicals
28:42
are highly toxic. So when
28:46
an animal eats microplastics, it's
28:49
not just getting little bits of plastic that
28:53
it might poop out later. It may or may
28:56
not. That's an issue of how well
28:59
it passes through the digestive system. But it's also that
29:03
the plastic has chemicals that can
29:07
come off it and be toxic in various ways.
29:12
So anyway, I'm digressing. So we've got the fibers and
29:17
the tire wear particles. Another
29:22
source of microplastics are
29:26
pre-manufactured pellets. We call them pellets or
29:30
nurdles is what they're called. This
29:34
is the way plastic is manufactured in the first place.
29:37
These tiny things about the size of a lentil. And
29:44
there have been shipping where
29:48
they spill millions of them. If there's a
29:51
ship spill, a few years ago there was a spill
29:55
of these things from a ship that ran aground or
29:59
something near Sri Lanka. And the beaches
30:03
on Sri Lanka were about six feet
30:06
deep in these pellets,
30:10
these nurdles. It's just
30:14
hard to even imagine this. And
30:18
then the fourth major contributor
30:24
is paints. paint is now plastic. Latex
30:28
paint. We don't use oil paint anymore. We use
30:31
latex paint. What's latex? It's plastic. And,
30:36
you know, a boat gets scraped off or, you
30:39
know, even flaking off from building structures
30:43
or anything near the water, you get tiny paint
30:46
particles as another major contributor. But
30:50
I would say the textiles The
30:55
nurdles and the tire wear particles are the
31:00
So, you know, these are all these types
31:05
of products, right? And consequences of such products. They're
31:08
in our everyday lives, right? You've got clothes, you've got tires.
31:12
I mean, we're seeing them all over the place. When people
31:15
want to do something about you know, marine pollution like
31:19
this. They want to reduce or things like that. How do they get
31:22
away from all this kind of stuff? How do they, like, it's not as if
31:26
there are a lot of alternatives. There are more probably now than there were 10 years
31:29
ago, but some of it's really, really expensive and it's not necessarily everything's
31:33
expensive now. So that makes it really more expensive. How do
31:36
you suggest that people help in terms of
31:39
reducing the amount of materials that are in there and
31:43
these types of chemicals and these types of products How
31:47
do we get rid of, how do we reduce our, not only our single footprint, but
31:51
Well, in terms of the textiles, there
31:55
are things that individual people can do.
32:00
I mean, you can buy more clothing
32:04
that are not synthetic, that's wool or cotton. Not
32:11
to say that those have no problems, but those have less problems.
32:17
in terms of some people buy clothing,
32:21
wear it a few times and then throw it out fast fashion. This
32:26
is really terrible because that ends up in a landfill somewhere
32:30
and just releasing microfibers. So
32:34
buy clothes and wear and keep them for a while. I have some clothes I've
32:37
had for decades. When
32:42
you wash the clothes, There
32:46
are things you can do to reduce the
32:49
amount of shedding. Using
32:53
full loads rather than washing a few things
32:57
at a time. That helps. Using
33:00
a front-loading machine rather than a top-loading machine
33:05
helps. Not
33:09
using fabric softener helps. not
33:15
doing a pre-wash cycle helps. So
33:21
all these personal decisions and choices, and
33:25
then after they're all washed, if you have a possibility of
33:28
hanging them out on a line to dry, rather than putting
33:32
them in a mechanical dryer where
33:36
they're going to just spew the fibers out into the air, hang
33:41
them on a line instead, if you can. There
33:47
are also things you can
33:50
do to capture
33:56
the fibers once they've been released. There
34:00
are filters on the market that you can
34:03
buy to attach to your washing machine that
34:07
capture a pretty
34:11
good lot of them. And
34:16
those are available to purchase for about
34:22
$150. So the filter will help. This will all contribute
34:27
to having fewer microfibers from
34:30
clothing coming into the water bodies.
34:35
So people can do stuff with regard
34:38
to that. Also, The
34:42
textile industry is aware of
34:46
the problem. And researchers
34:50
are trying to develop, I mean, this is
34:53
bringing back to the source rather than intercepting them
34:57
on the way to the water. If we can get fabrics
35:01
that shed much less, or ideally don't
35:04
shed at all, that will be a
35:08
solution to the problem. depends on the
35:11
textile people, not the marine biologists. We
35:15
find the problems. They
35:23
know that loose weaves, like
35:26
fleeces, shed a lot more, and
35:30
that tighter weaves shed much less. They
35:34
also know that if the fibers used are
35:38
long rather than very short, that
35:42
helps it all stay together instead of shedding. So,
35:49
you know, it's up to the textile scientists
35:53
and the textile industry and they are working on
35:57
it. When
36:01
it comes to the tires, I
36:05
have not heard anything about the tire companies being
36:09
concerned and trying to do something about
36:13
it. They may be, but
36:18
So you haven't heard of different materials being used in tires to...
36:24
That may be just that I'm not tuned into the right sources.
36:28
But I know I'm getting
36:32
stuff about the textile industry. I'm not learning
36:36
about the tire industry. The
36:41
tires are particularly worrisome because
36:46
there is a chemical in the tires called
36:51
6PPD-Q. The
36:55
Q is quinone. I forget what the PPD is.
37:01
But it's a chemical that is exceptionally
37:13
Particularly to salmon. And this chemical, when
37:17
you've got the tire wear particles around, huge
37:20
numbers of salmon migrating up
37:24
to spawn are killed by the chemical.
37:27
By very low concentrations of this chemical is
37:34
And perhaps other salmon species. Yeah. You
37:38
know, this is something you know that
37:42
the Tire people should
37:45
try to find a replacement for right are
37:51
Yeah Yeah, the information is not necessarily readily available to you as
37:54
is the textile industry Giving a seminar in late
38:05
going up to Cornell to my alma
38:08
mater. So I'm really delighted to go there. And
38:12
I'm not giving this seminar in the biology department
38:15
or the environmental department. I'm giving this seminar to the textile
38:22
I like that. And they will let
38:26
the biology and environmental science and so
38:30
forth, the other departments, the departments that I
38:33
would relate to more, inviting people to come, but
38:37
I'm talking to the textile people. And, you
38:42
know, I have the next to last slide. It
38:46
says, you know, what you can do in the general public. And
38:49
I talk about the washing machine and how to
38:53
do it and the front loading and not so much fabric softener and
38:56
blah, blah, blah. That's the next to last slide. And then the
39:00
last slide is what you can do as a textile scientist.
39:06
One thing, find ways to have fabrics
39:14
You're seeing it. I do agree there's a lot more information
39:18
on the textile industry and I've seen more people
39:22
start to experiment and there is at least one company
39:25
I know that's looking at making fabrics and
39:29
textiles out of kelp. and other marine algal
39:37
It's all good stuff. It's been a very long time.
39:41
Very long time. Now this company that I've been watching is
39:45
a little faster and starting to release some items and being
39:48
in the fashion shows and stuff. I don't know if they're going to be high
39:52
fashion or if they're going to be like fashion for I
39:57
guess what like the regular purchased items you know t-shirts and
40:00
shirts and all that kind of clothes and stuff like that that everybody
40:04
kind of does not just not just some of the extravagant sort
40:10
Yeah yeah exactly. But like, obviously,
40:14
marine pollution or plastic pollution is a big deal. You
40:18
know, we know that we can, we know one way of reducing it, which
40:21
is great that you've gone over. We know policy is another thing
40:24
that we could do with support organizations that are following. you
40:28
know, looking at marine plastics and trying to work on the policy side
40:32
with governments to get these things going, as well as supporting individual
40:37
scientists or other, you know, organizations and academics who
40:40
are, you know, taking part in the treaty and, you know, trying
40:43
to help and get people to understand the ramifications
40:47
if we do let plastics continue to go in. And that's
40:52
Yes. efforts in
40:56
state legislatures about
41:01
filters. And there was a bill in
41:04
California last year and in Oregon last
41:08
year that didn't make it all the way through. But
41:11
there were bills that had quite a fair amount of support to
41:16
require that new washing machines to
41:19
be sold in their state had to be equipped with
41:26
I understand that France has passed a law requiring
41:31
that in some future year,
41:35
I don't know, in the late 2020s sometime. That's
41:42
And there's other bills about plastic. There's
41:45
a Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act.
41:50
that's been in the US Congress. It
41:55
has some support, but it hasn't got enough to
41:59
pass. But there's
42:03
also, just last week, one
42:07
senator put into a bill
42:12
for a national requirement of
42:17
filters on washing machines. I
42:21
don't know that these bills are gonna go very far. I
42:24
don't think there's that much support yet. And
42:28
we've had stuff in New York State, various
42:34
things that have, not
42:37
on microplastics and filters, but on reducing
42:51
That came pretty close to passing last year. But
42:57
then there's also an issue where sometimes
43:00
when a bill passes, the
43:05
governor may not want to sign it. And
43:10
that's another issue. And sometimes when it's
43:13
passed and the governor signs it, it
43:16
doesn't get enforced very well. If the
43:20
Department of Environmental Conservation, who's
43:23
supposed to enforce the law, doesn't do their
43:27
job very well. I mean, I'm thinking of the plastic bag
43:31
law in New York State. Four years ago, New
43:34
York State passed a law prohibiting
43:38
supermarkets and so forth to give out plastic bags.
43:42
Well, there are huge neighborhoods where hundreds
43:46
of stores are still giving out plastic bags in
43:52
That's interesting. Yeah, they're not enforcing it by any means, right?
43:55
I mean, there's a lot to go. It's a lot to get a
43:59
bill passed, to get a bill drawn up and passed. And then
44:02
there's enforcement as well. And we all know, through our experience in
44:05
the environment, enforcement is a huge, huge
44:09
issue, or lack thereof is a huge, huge issue. And
44:13
just getting politicians to start considering and
44:16
start getting educated on the subject matter then passing or
44:20
supporting a bill to pass it, then the enforcement has to happen,
44:23
then the people have to kind of follow it as well. It's an
44:27
uphill battle. We know that
44:31
for a fact. But I feel as though we're starting to get progress, especially
44:35
in the plastics sort of case, where we're
44:38
starting to see more and more people supporting bills like this, more and
44:41
more people supporting laws like this. It's not as
44:45
convenient for everybody, but I think we need to be a little inconvenienced. It's
44:48
not all about convenience in our lives. It's about looking after, you
44:52
know, the ocean and looking after our planet. But I think that's really interesting. Just
44:55
to move quickly, you know, because all this stuff is covered In
44:59
the book, you know, you got, you know, plastic pollution, marine debris, marine
45:02
litter, you know, but there's something that's been really, especially
45:06
this past summer or spring, that really kind
45:09
of hit Florida a little hard. We saw about 80 different fish
45:13
species get hit with some sort of bad water
45:16
quality. Yeah, where they would turn around, especially sawfish, where they
45:20
would turn around and swirl around in circles, and they would die.
45:23
I just did an article, actually, on this where it
45:27
was multiple toxins from a dinoflagellate genus
45:33
that could expel multiple toxins. Unfortunately, the
45:36
sawfish got it probably the worst, because they got it in their gills and their liver.
45:41
We're seeing things like red tide, we're seeing things like
45:44
these multiple toxins get released at some point, and they
45:47
still don't know the mechanism of why. They're usually on the bottom
45:51
or on some sea plants of some sort or algae,
45:55
but all of a sudden they got into 80 different species of fish,
45:59
they don't know why, they don't know if it was concentrated somewhere. Is this
46:02
also something that you cover in terms of like, is this a
46:08
Oh, yeah. I
46:11
guess the first chapter of the book is
46:16
about nutrient pollution, which
46:19
is responsible for algal blooms, including
46:24
harmful algal blooms, which are the ones
46:27
that are putting out toxic stuff.
46:32
So yeah. Yeah, that's
46:35
in the eutrophication. And the eutrophication is
46:39
one thing that seems to be getting worse. It
46:43
happens more. I mean,
46:46
we have got some control in
46:51
areas where there are sewage treatment plants of
46:55
this. But there are so many people
46:59
with big lawns and putting fertilizer, I
47:02
mean agricultural pollution from fertilizer, but
47:06
also the rich communities with the gigantic
47:10
lawns going down to a lake, right?
47:14
Or going down to an estuary. And then it
47:17
rains and all of that is ending up in the estuary. And
47:22
you'll get an algal bloom which may or may not have
47:30
So this is a problem that seems to be getting worse, while
47:34
some problems, and plastic is also getting worse,
47:38
and some problems seem to be getting better. You
47:42
know, we don't see, we haven't seen a big oil spill
47:46
in a long time. We have, you know, less
47:50
problem with oil spills. Some of the other contaminants are
47:55
improving like less
47:58
PCBs or mercury because they're not
48:02
being released anymore and they're in the sediments and
48:05
the highly polluted sediments are getting covered over by
48:09
cleaner sediments. So they're getting down further
48:12
and further and not going to be making trouble. So
48:18
Well, even New York City Harbor has improved in water quality with all
48:21
those factories that haven't been able to, you know, they kind
48:25
of literally cleaned up their act in terms of allowing those chemicals
48:28
to go. And we've seen the Medhaden come back, we've
48:34
And the Medhaden are back, the whales come back. And there's nothing
48:37
so exciting as going on a whale watching trip
48:41
from Brooklyn, New York. Yeah, I'm seeing Wales with
48:45
the city skyline in the back. Yeah, so for
48:48
the I had a couple years ago Nominated the
48:53
New York, New Jersey Harbor estuary to become a
48:56
hope spot. This is all right Sylvia Earle's yeah
49:00
organization mission blue Has
49:05
designate certain areas as hope spots so now
49:09
I'm Our estuary, the
49:12
New York, New Jersey Harbor estuary, is one of the hope
49:15
spots because of how much better it's gotten. It's
49:19
certainly not pristine. It's still polluted. For sure, but there's been improvement. But
49:22
in the past 50 years, since the Clean Water Act, it has gotten so
49:26
much better. And I'm the one
49:32
Well, congratulations, that's awesome. Because that does like, that
49:35
brings a lot of attention towards New York City Harbor,
49:39
right? It brings a lot of attention towards the hope and the optimism that
49:43
if we actually do things right, we actually obey the
49:46
law, we put the laws in, we obey them, we enforce them, we
49:49
can get our environment back, we can get our oceans back, we
49:52
can get our lakes and our rivers back. And I think that's really important. And
49:56
it really does start with things like the Clean Water Act and the Clean
49:59
Air Act. And we start to see these bills i got you know we've
50:03
one of the biggest in the in the u s some of the biggest uh... acts like the
50:06
mason stevenson's act the marine mammal protection act in the seventies have
50:10
really allowed species that were once considered almost
50:14
extinct or critical to really come back great white sharks this
50:18
uh... pacific sea lions and so forth have kind and even like i
50:21
think some of those the smaller fish uh... like the uh... uh...
50:25
it's escaping me right now uh... sardines and
50:28
things like that have started to come back of the you know more and more because of those
50:32
protections and you know and and i don't want to put you on the
50:35
spot i don't want you to say if you don't if you're not comfortable who you're
50:38
going to support but there's a really important election coming up not
50:42
only in the u s and it looks like it Yeah, I
50:45
think so. Yes, I think so. But I think this is really important because look,
50:49
in Canada, we thought we weren't going to have one until 2025. It
50:52
looks like that might be happening a little earlier federal election. And
50:56
so in both Canada and the US, where there's
51:00
a lot at stake in terms of the environment, because it
51:04
seems like One party is
51:08
for protecting the environment, and you can almost criticize not enough, but they actually
51:11
have policies to protect the environment and keep certain legislations
51:16
and laws in place. And then you have other parties, or
51:19
another party that is not talking about protecting and
51:22
even talking about regressing some of those laws, which happened
51:26
in the US, happened between 2016 and 2020 when President Trump was in
51:33
And this candidate thinks climate change is
51:38
Right, right. He's almost like 40 years behind sort
51:42
of what people are kind of going. So I guess the question for
51:45
me is, for this audience and for people who
51:48
you talk to who you want the audience to read
51:52
your book, what would you recommend
51:55
they do in terms of finding out what each party
52:02
They have to do their homework and
52:06
pay attention. I mean, you
52:09
can't just go out and vote and
52:13
pick a candidate, get informed, who's supporting
52:17
what. And I would expect most of
52:28
Yeah. They're clearly informed if they're listening
52:35
Yeah, I guess it's frustrating to me. And
52:38
I guess you've seen this a number of times, too, where in
52:41
election cycles, the environment takes a backseat, and it's always the
52:45
economy over the environment. But at what point, Judith,
52:49
do we realize or do like sort of the general
52:52
public realizes that a lot of the times the economy is still tied
52:56
to the environment. So if the environment goes to crap, our
53:00
economy's gonna go to crap. And case in point, a lot of the consequences from
53:04
climate change, increased storm surges, increased hurricane,
53:09
typhoons, tornadoes, droughts, wildfires.
53:13
At what point do we put a price on
53:17
the cleanup and tie it to how it's affecting the
53:21
All those bad things are happening mostly to
53:30
Yeah, it's true. Many of
53:33
those people are powerless. You
53:38
know, you've got to look who's getting affected and
53:42
who is making more money by not having
53:48
Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if anybody has ever calculated
53:53
the total amount paid out from FEMA or
53:56
from any, you know, government organization on the cleanups of
54:00
all these things and sort of the bailing out of people
54:03
on all these things and tied that to the debt or to who's
54:07
paying for that or how that's going to affect the future. It should be done. It should
54:14
Yeah, I think I'm going to have to do an episode on that next, because I think that's the
54:18
next question. And a question for you. For me,
54:21
as someone who has the ability to get messages out
54:25
through this podcast and other means, what
54:28
do you think I should focus on from an environmental standpoint to help
54:32
people inform themselves in
54:35
terms of what they're voting for in this election? I know we're coming
54:39
down to the last couple of months, but is
54:42
there something that I could could publish on,
54:50
I think you should have other people to talk
54:58
If each episode you do, I
55:05
OK, so you've done a lot of this. Yeah. You
55:08
can hammer it home with different people coming
55:13
Right, right. Yeah, I think this is something that I might, I'm
55:17
going to definitely consider seeing if I can line up some people who can help out and
55:21
talk about some of these important issues and how it affects people that,
55:25
you know, we may not hear in the debate or we may not, because I think climate
55:28
change was only talked about just a little bit in the debate this
55:33
It was at the last couple of minutes and nobody had time to
55:37
Yeah, so hopefully, I don't know if there will be another debate, hopefully it
55:40
gets covered there more, but we'll be covering it here. So if people want
55:44
to listen, they could listen to that. So I think that's important. If
55:47
people want to get access to your book, I'll put the links in
55:54
I would encourage them to go to their local bookstore
55:58
and tell them to stock it. Nice. Go to their local library,
56:02
just get them to stock it. They could also go to
56:06
the Oxford University Press website
56:10
and put in, you know, marine pollution, what everyone
56:14
needs to know, second edition. Gotcha.
56:21
And I'm not going to recommend, although some people will
56:28
Okay, we'll put the Oxford link in and we'll
56:33
have people buy it from there. And like you said, let's try
56:36
and get people to ask for it in the library in their local bookstore.
56:40
I think that's fantastic. Judith, this has been an absolute
56:44
pleasure to have you on the podcast. I'm looking for, hopefully it won't be
56:51
I'm happy to come on. I'm not doing any more books, but I'm
56:56
We'll have you on because you have such a wealth of knowledge to share with us and
56:59
we definitely appreciate your time to spend with us
57:03
for this last hour. It's been absolutely wonderful. Thank
57:06
you so much and we'll continue promoting this book because I think it's going to
57:14
So wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Judith, for joining me here on the
57:17
How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was great to have you. I told you
57:20
she comes in and talks facts and talks fun. It's
57:25
just a fun way to listen to this type of thing. She's such a fun
57:28
person. I've got to meet her in person as we mentioned. in Borneo in
57:31
Malaysia at the International Marine Conservation Congress a
57:34
number of years ago we haven't seen each other since but it's
57:38
been 10 years since she's been on the podcast and I'm so happy that
57:41
she's back on however I want to have her on more often but
57:45
it's it's really invigorating to talk to somebody who's done so much
57:48
work in and around like the Northeast US and the US. She's
57:52
done work in the Pacific. She's done work all over the place. Even
57:56
in her retirement, she is working. And I think that is something that
58:00
is really fun to see and really fun to watch. Just
58:04
seeing someone who's so passionate and cares so, so much and does such great
58:07
work. So really happy to have her on. And I
58:10
will put the link to the Oxford bookstore so
58:13
you can see it. And as she said, You know, as Judith mentioned, go to
58:17
your library, go to your local bookstore, ask for marine pollution to be in
58:20
those stores in that library so that other people can take it out, other people
58:23
can read it. Not everybody can afford to buy books, totally understandable, but
58:27
we highly recommend that you go to your library to see it. And if it's not there,
58:31
ask them for them to carry it so they might actually do it by a couple of copies.
58:35
Okay, so thank you so much for joining me. That's it for today's episode. I'll
58:38
put all the links to where Judith wants you to buy the books if you want to buy it.
58:42
And I'll put all the links to get in touch with me as well. But I want to
58:45
thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
58:48
I'm your host Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.