San Juan County is supporting research and education on plastics pollution. With the guidance of Jen Kingfisher of the Port Townsend Marine Science Center several volunteers have been learning to sample marine micro plastics. Susan Muckle sampled Lopez and Kim Secunda, Margot Shaw, Marcia Spees, Janet Alderton, Molly Coxe and Nancy Alboucq took samples from Fishing Bay and Cresent Beach. According to Jen, the beach at Fishing Bay is among the 'worst' she has seen in terms of the quantity of plastic accumulation.
After collecting the samples, they are sorted into size and 'type' and then counted. Some of the different types of plastics are: foam, filaments, film, fragments and nurdles(pre-production plastic 'pellets'). See the following link for more information on nurdles and plastic pollution.
35 beaches in 12 counties in 8 days are sampled twice a year. The results will be sent to Jen in Port Townsend in preparation for the Citizen Science Summit on Plastic Pollution in the Salish Sea at Fort Worden on May 14-15.
http://ptmsc.org/science/plastics/plasticssummit.html
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