'All The Plastic You Cannot See': Online, Free, Manhattan Beach

MANHATTAN BEACH, CA — The Sustainability Speaker Series from South Bay Cares continues with "All The Plastic You Cannot See" on Thursday, Feb. 18 from 7-8 p.m. The free educational online event includes Marcus Eriksen, Ph.D. and director of Science & Innovation at the 5 Gyres Institute, and two former Co-Executive Directors of Grades of Green, a nonprofit dedicated to inspiring kids to care for the earth.

Did you know that plastic debris comes in all shapes and sizes? And that the smallest of all — micro and nano plastics — are found everywhere, from mountain summits to the deepest ocean trenches. In fact, studies suggest that each of us may be eating, swallowing or breathing in thousands of tiny pieces of plastic each week. Are you ready to learn about how you can swap your plastic diet for something more healthful?

Plastic pollution researcher Eriksen and Emily Gee and Allie Bussjaeger, who scaled Grades of Green to more than half a million students globally, will present practical tips and actions for living an environmentally focused, plastic-free life.

As innovative environmental changemakers, each continues to make a profound impact on the environments we create and live in.

Eriksen, who has led expeditions around the world to research plastic marine pollution, publishing the first global estimate of plastic pollution floating in the world’s oceans, will share his latest findings.

Gee will share her experience joining 5 Gyres on an expedition to Indonesia to study plastic pollution.

Eriksen is known as a steadfast advocate for our waters, and co-discovered plastic microbeads in the Great Lakes, which led to the federal Microbead-free Waters Act of 2015. Expeditions today rally young leaders in industry, science, activism and the arts, with the intention to provide science and understanding to a new generation.

He and Anna Cummins began the 5 Gyres Institute with an 88-day journey from California to Hawaii on JUNK, a homemade raft built from 15,000 plastic bottles. He has authored many research studies and two books, Junk Raft: An Ocean Voyage and a Rising Tide of Activism to Fight Plastic Pollution (Beacon 2017) and My River Home (Beacon 2008).

Gee, a social impact leader and marketing specialist, is dedicated to inspiring people to make informed decisions with the environment and people in mind. She is the marketing manager at AeroFarms, the largest indoor vertical farm of its kind. AeroFarms is also a Certified B Corp named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company three years in row.

Bussjaeger has worked for more than a decade with environmental nonprofits to cultivate behavior changes to protect our planet. Currently, she is the director of Impact and Sustainability at human-I-T, a nonprofit that refurbishes technology to redistribute to low-income communities across the U.S. Previously, she served as the Recycling Center Coordinator at California State University, Long Beach, where she oversaw the recycling center.

South Bay Cares invites all to tune into this free online fun, engaging and informative session that will have giveaways for a few lucky webinar participants.

If you are interested in hearing about what microscopic plastic particles are, how they get everywhere and what we can do to get them out of our air, food and water, then this webinar is not to be missed.

Register in advance for this free webinar online here.

Catch up on all of the Sustainability Series online here.