Micro-Plastic

At the 32nd Annual Southwest Florida Model United Nations conference at Florida Gulf Coast University in March, high school teams were challenged to imagine solutions for the problem of land-based plastics and the micro and nano plastics that we now know are in the world all around us. Cypress Lake High School’s Model UN team took top honors and a $1,000 prize for their presentation proposing a creative and actionable — and ambitious — plan to address plastic pollution along Southwest Florida’s Gulf Coast. We learn about their plan from one of the team's members.

Discarded cigarette butts, empty cans and bottles have been fouling Southwest Florida’s beaches, preserves and parking lots for as long as people have been using such items, and now there is a new scourge being mixed in: discarded face masks used to protect the wearer from Covid-19. Masks come in many shapes and sizes, but one commonality is too many of them are being discarded everywhere except in a trash can. “Mask litter” is a worldwide problem with serious environmental ramifications. A report published in the journal Nature Sustainability finds a “skyrocketing” increase in mask littler in 14 months in 11 countries including the United States, a finding the study’s authors called “devastating.

A conversation with artist and founder the Drifters Project Pam Longobardi about her exhibition in the Baker Museum at Artis-Naples, which aims to raise awareness about the dangers of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans.

A plastic bag or a six pack ring floating by in the ocean would cause someone to cringe. Large pieces of plastics are easy to spot, campaign around and…

By now you’ve probably heard of the giant patch of plastics floating in the Pacific Ocean, and things like micro-beads from cosmetics turning up in…