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Hello and

this is a special episode of the excerpt.

today is Thursday December 21st, 2023 and this is a special episode of the excerpt. Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic that result when larger pieces are broken down and they are everywhere. They're in our oceans and

mountains, they're in our food, they're in our blood and now according to a new study

published last month they've even been found in clouds. What's the impact of these ubiquitous

materials on our health and on our environment and can we do anything to stem the

tide of plastic that keeps winding up, well, everywhere.

Here to help me understand this pervasive and intractable issue, I'm joined by Lee Schimmets,

an environmental health expert, and the president of Soundwaters

a coastal education organization that works to promote the well-being of Long Island Sound.

Lee, thanks for coming on the excerpt.

Thanks so much Dana, happy to be able to.

OK, so let's dig right in.

How do we get to this point?

Can you talk us through how these very small plastic materials

end up in so many places? So how we got here was that we started making plastic.

And one thing to understand about plastic is that it doesn't biodegrade.

It stays with us anywhere from 500 to a thousand years to completely

degrade. So all the plastic that's been produced since the 20th century is still with us and will be with us for centuries.

So that's how we started getting here and then I think the second thing to understand is the acceleration that we're experiencing now that while we've been developing

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