Freshwater Plastic Pollution and The Impact of Pollution on Our Freshwater Ecosystems with Sherri A. "Sam" Mason, Ph.D.
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 August 2023
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why does so much trash wind up in our waterways? Without proper action much farther upstream than preventing the last stages of littering, changes can be challenging to make.
- How effective litter booms may be
- How trash buildups can impact the bacterial microbiome
- The levels of microplastics present in consumer products.
Sherri A. "Sam" Mason, Ph.D., the Director of Sustainability at Penn State Eerie Behrend, shares their work on sustainability and how trash makes its way into the water.
Litter has been a problem for much of our recent history, destroying ecosystems and causing irreparable damage in some cases. However, with the rise of plastics and other difficult-to-decompose materials, this issue is only exacerbated.
By looking in bodies of water for microplastics, the more significant issue, on the whole, is attempting to determine how these make their way from the store to the waterways. This is a problem for the consumer as well since microplastics that make their way back into us can be incredibly damaging.
Visit https://www.sherrimason.com to learn more.
Episode also available on Apple Podcast: http://apple.co/30PvU9C
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Forget frequently asked questions. |
| 0:02.4 | Common sense. |
| 0:03.2 | Common knowledge. |
| 0:04.1 | Or Google. |
| 0:04.8 | How about advice from a real genius? |
| 0:07.0 | 95% of people in any profession are good enough to be qualified in license. |
| 0:11.4 | 5% go above and beyond. |
| 0:13.2 | They become very good at what they do. |
| 0:14.9 | But only 0.1% are real geniuses. |
| 0:18.2 | Richard Jacobs has made it his life's mission to find them for you. |
| 0:22.3 | He hunts down and interviews geniuses in every field, sleep science, cancer, stem cells, |
| 0:27.1 | ketogenic diets, and more. |
| 0:28.7 | Here come the geniuses. |
| 0:30.4 | This is the Finding Genius podcast with Richard Jacobs. |
| 0:43.1 | Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Finding Genius podcast, now part of the Finding Genius Foundation. |
| 0:44.3 | I have Dr. Sherry Mason. |
| 0:46.3 | She likes to be called Sam, it looks like. |
| 0:48.3 | She had a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin. |
| 0:52.3 | Then she went on to get her doctorate in chemistry at University of Montana as a NASA Earth System Science scholar, |
| 0:59.4 | which is also a professor of chemistry at SUNY Ferdonia. |
| 1:02.6 | And we're going to talk about her research on plastic pollution. |
| 1:05.4 | So, Sam, thanks for coming. |
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