According to Jennifer Savage, Senior Manager, Plastic Pollution Initiative at the Surfrider Foundation, microplastics have been found in everything from ocean water, human blood and lungs, placenta of mothers who have just given birth and spiderwebs and agricultural foods around some cities.

Microplastics are making their way into the food chain and causing impacts to health that aren’t completely understood yet. As surfers spend more time in the ocean, they are more likely to ingest these tiny fragments without knowing.

Savage leads a team with the Surfrider Foundation, an organization created to engage environmental experts to create solutions, on policy work in an effort to reduce plastic pollution in the oceans.

“Most of the Surfrider members get involved with our organization because they go to the beach and surf, love the ocean and they see trash everywhere so they want to do something about it,” Savage said.

“Surfing has gone from being sort of an aesthetic experience for people to like, ‘oh, this is yucky,’” Savage added. “We don't like to be on a beach that's full of litter or paddling around, with plastic bags and water bottles and anybody who's been in the ocean probably is seeing at least some trash when they're surfing, if not a lot.”

The Surfrider Foundation has over 80 chapters, along with multiple international affiliates including Senegal, Europe, Argentina, and Japan, which they work with to create a global solution to stopping plastic waste.

Microplastics can come from microbeads in cosmetics, or they can break up from bigger pieces of plastic like your bottles, bags, utensils, through weathering in the environment, said Torres. Researchers have also been finding microplastics coming from tires and textiles in the form of microfibers. Some microplastics can beco microscopic.

Microplastics are all around the world mostly concentrated in areas with gyres, said Tanya Torres, an affiliate of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s debris program.

Voice of Surfers

Surfers are facing at higher risk of exposure to micro plastics. Surfers are facing at higher risk of exposure to micro plastics. Surfers are facing at higher risk of exposure to micro plastics.

Charles' interview

Surfers are facing at higher risk of exposure to micro plastics. Surfers are facing at higher risk of exposure to micro plastics. Surfers are facing at higher risk of exposure to micro plastics.

Conclusion

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writers make all their sentences short, or that they avoid all detail and treat their subjects only in outline, but that they make every word tell.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writers make all their sentences short, or that they avoid all detail and treat their subjects only in outline, but that they make every word tell.

Willow Bay, former co-host of NBA Inside Stuff, began her career in sports media in the 90s. “We put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves as pioneers to really prove that we belong there, and for many of us, myself included, that did mean working harder, working longer, working smarter, and always feeling like you had to do that in order to prove you belonged."