Recent Newspaper Article about Micro-Plastics Sampling

An excellent article written by Shann Weston and 2009 Beach Watcher Marcia Spees appeared in the Dec. 15 issue of all three island newspapers! Well done, ladies! This fall's micro-plastics sampling at Odlin and Otis Perkinds on Lopez only yielded a modest quantity of plastic particles. But at Crescent beach, and especially at Indian Island, on Orcas, it was a different story. Both beaches face towards the prevailing southerly winds and have a long "fetch" (the distance waves have to build up without interruption,) -- conditions which bring in much more debris. In a 7-liter sample collected at one point from Fishing Bay, over 10,000 micro-plastic samples were found, showing, (sadly,) how prevalent and persistent plastics are in our environment.