Invisibles
The Plastic Inside Us
An Investigative Report By
Christopher Tyree
Christopher Tyree has more than 20 years of international reporting experience as a photojournalist, writer and filmmaker. His photojournalism has been recognized by the National Press Photographer’s Association, Pictures of the Year International and the Associated Press to name a few. His documentary films have garnered nationwide theatrical releases and won awards at many film festivals. He has been published in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, People and Life Magazine as well as many international periodicals.
Dan Morrison
Dan Morrison has reported from Asia, Africa, and the United States for outlets including The New York Times, National Geographic, and Al Jazeera. He is the author of “The Black Nile” (Viking, 2010).
Credits
Heather Krause
Heather’s invaluable contribution included working with the Orb Media team to gather, prepare, and analyze data. Heather is a professionally trained mathematical statistician with years of working on complex research problems for non-profit and NGO organizations. She is the founder and principal consultant at Datassist and has worked on every continent except Antarctica. She has a strong love of finding data, analyzing it in creative ways, and using cutting edge visualization methods to visualize the results. Her emphasis is on combining strong statistical analysis with clear and meaningful communication.
Maria Monroe
Maria helps with both operational and editorial aspects of producing our stories. She is involved in everything from story research, to booking travel, to copy editing, to populating the text that you are reading right now. Maria has a B.A. in English and Gender Studies from the University of Notre Dame and an M.S. in Journalism from the University of Kansas.
Nicole Davies
Nicole is involved with the story from research, through social journalism, to publication. She builds and executes communication strategy to find industry leaders, subject matter experts, and like-minded thinkers to do everything from enhance the story through social journalism initiatives to share the story with related networks to amplify our reporting. Nicole has a B.A. in Foreign Language and Communication Media and an M.A. in Media Entrepreneurship from American University.
Ray Suarez
Ray Suarez has had a 40-year career in print, radio, and television news. He was most recently the host of the daily news program Inside Story on Al Jazeera America. Before that Suarez was Chief National Correspondent for the PBS NewsHour. He came to PBS from NPR, where he was the host of Talk of the Nation. He has contributed writing to many books, and is the author of three, most recently Latino Americans: The 500-Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation. Suarez’ journalism has been recognized with two DuPont-Columbia Silver Batons, the National Council of La Raza’s Ruben Salazar Award, and UCLA’s Public Policy Leadership Award for his reporting on urban America. In autumn 2017, he became the John J. McCloy Visiting Professor of American Studies at Amherst College.
Copy Editor
Siddhi Camila Lama
To Those Who Helped With Our Citizen Science Lab Endeavor
A sincere THANK YOU to all of the individuals and organizations who helped make our Citizen Science Lab work a global success.
Especially, to Mary Kosuth, MSc, and Sherri A. Mason, Ph.D., for conducting and overseeing our Citizen Science Lab work. Their experience and expertise made our findings that much stronger.
And including, but not limited to,
Paul Cochrane
Quito: Camera: Isadora Romero (Produced by: Ñan Communication)
Klirkom, Jakarta
Mark Mutaahi, Kampala
EarthGreen, Quito
ToxicsLink, New Delhi
Difaf, Beirut
Support Staff
Thank you to Mark Browne, Tamara Galloway, Richard Thompson, and Chelsea Rochman, for their subject matter expertise.
To our fixers Sarah Sayekti and Ivan Kabagambe, thank you for helping us navigate your countries.
Post Production Team
Susan Gorman // Voice Over Videos - Multimedia Version
Ray Suarez // Voice Over - Audio Version
Matt Pamer // Graphic Artist
Jonah Tobias // Motion Graphic Artist
Music Bed // Soundtracks for the videos and audio piece
Story Content Translators
Arabic // Benan Grams, Samyah Alfoory
Brazilian Portuguese // Renata Johnson, Beatriz Baker Meio
Spanish // M. Oscar Platero, Eduardo R. Corredera
References
(1) Eriksen, M.; Lebreton, L.; Carson, H.; Thiel M.; Moore, C.; Borerro, J.; Galgani, F.; Ryan, P.; Reisser J. Plastic Pollution in the World’s Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea. PLOS ONE 2014, 1-15
(2) Cozar A.; Echevarria F.; Gonzalez-Gordillo I.; Irigoien X.; Ubeda B; Hernandez-Leon S; Palma, A.; Navarro S.; Garcia-de-Lomas J.; Ruiz, A.; Fernandez-de-Puelles, M.; Duarte C. Plastic debris in the open ocean. PNAS 2014, 10239-10244
(3) Acosta-Coley I.; Olivero-Verbel J. Microplastic resin pellets on an urban tropical beach in Colombia. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 2014, 435
(4) Woodall L.C.; Sanchez-Vidal A.; Canals M.; Paterson G.; Coppock R.; Sleight V.; Calafat A.; Rogers A.; Narayanaswamy B.; Thompson R. The deep sea is a major sink for microplastic debris. Royal Society Open Science 2014, 1-8
(5) Eriksen, M.; Mason, S.; Wilson S.; Box C.; Zellers A.; Edwards W.; Farley H.; Amato S. Microplastic pollution in the surface waters of the Laurentian Great Lakes. Marine Pollution Bulletin 2013, 177-182
(6) Baldwin A.; Corsi S.; Mason S. Plastic Debris in 29 Great Lakes Tributaries: Relations to Watershed Attributes and Hydrology. Environmental Science & Technology 2016, 10377-10385
(7) Obbard, R.W.; Sadri S.; Wong Y. Q.; Khitun, A.; Baker, I.; Thompson, R.C. Global warming releases microplastic legacy in Arctic Sea ice. Earth’s Future 2014, 315-320
(8) Dris, R.; Gasperi, J.; Rocher, V.; Saad, M.; Tassin, B. Microplastic Contamination in an urban area: a case study in Greater Paris. Environmental Chemistry, CSIRO Publishing 2015, pp. 2015
(9) Fossi, M.C.; Panti, C.; Guerranti, C.; Coppola D.; Giannetti M.; Marsili, L.; Minutoli R. Are baleen whales exposed to the threat of microplastics? A case study of the Mediterranean fin whale (Balaenoptera psysalus). Marine Pollution Bulletin 2012, 2374-2379
(10) Lusher, A.L.; McHugh, M.; Thompson, R.C. Occurrence of microplastics in the gastrointestinal tract of pelagic and demersal fish from the English Channel. Marine Pollution Bulletin 2013, 94-99
(11) Tyalor, M.L.; Gwinnett, C.; Woodall, L.C. Plastic microfibre ingestion by deep-sea organisms. Scientific Reports 2016, 6
(12) Mato, Y.; Isobe, T.; Takada, H.; Kanehiro, H.; Ohtake, C.; Kamihuma, T. Plastic Resin Pellets as a Transport Medium for Toxic Chemicals in the Marine Environment. Environmental Science and Technology 2001, 318-324
(13) McCormick, A.; Hoellein, T.J.; Mason, S.A; Schluep, J.; Kelly, J.J. Microplastic is an abundant and distinct microbial habitat in an urban river. Environmental Science & Technology 2014, 11863-11871
(14) Teuten, E.L. et al. Transport and release of chemicals from plastics to the environment and to wildlife. The Royal Society of Publishing 2009, 2027-2045
(15) Yang, D.; Shi, H.; Li, L.; Jabeen K.; Kolandhasamy P. Microplastic Pollution in Table Salt from China. Environmental Science & Technology 2015, 13622-13627
(16) Liebezeit G.; Liebezeit E. Synthetic particles as contaminants in German beers. Food Additives & Contaminants 2014, 1574-1578
(17) Karami A.; Golieskardi A.; Choo C.K.; Larat V.; Galloway T.; Salamatinia B. The presence of microplastics in commercial salts from different countries. Scientific Reports 2017, 1-9
(18) Rochman, C.; Tahir, A.; Williams, S.; Baxa, D.V.; Lam, R.; Miller, J.T.; Teh, F.; Werorilangi, S,; Teh, S.J. Anthropogenic debris in seafood: Plastic debris and fibers from textiles in fish and bivalves sold for human consumption. Science Reports 2015, 5