How a Band of Marine Researchers Is Solving the Plastic Pollution Crisis in Our Oceans

Algalita's Ship-2-Shore education program aims to demystify recycling. Image courtesy Algalita.

In 1999, Algalita founder Captain Charles Moore put his small California environmental nonprofit on the map when he was the first to sample the surface waters of what is now known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Since then, the California-based organization has dedicated itself to research and education about plastic pollution in the waterways with the belief that they can solve the problem with the right public outreach and in collaboration with other organizations and scientists. Considering that over 80 percent of marine debris originates from sources on land, there’s no time to waste.
Algalita’s executive director, Liesl Thomas, carries on Captain Moore’s vision of collaboration. “It was always his mentality that if anything is going to get solved, it will be by people working together,” she says from her office in Long Beach.

Liesl Thomas
Executive Director, Algalita

Algalita continues to partner with other organizations, biologists, and even graduate students at local universities to undertake research and education projects. They teamed up with the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where master’s students produced a 256-page report, “Reducing Plastic Debris in the Los Angeles and San Gabriel River Watersheds.” The report is the foundation of a new prevention campaign, which will include education on reducing litter and improving recycling savvy. “We realized that if we really wanted to make prevention happen, we needed to start smaller and look at a more local level,” Thomas says.
On the recycling education front, Algalita has partnered with the nationwide program Recycle Across America, whose goal is to get standardized recycling labels on all recycling bins across the country.

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