Science and Solutions for a Clean Ocean

Science and solutions for a clean ocean, lakes and rivers!

If you look for our trash, derelict fishing gear and microplastic in any aquatic environment, you will find it. This pollution is nearly ubiquitous and making its way through the marine and human food web – and onto our plates and into our bodies. National Geographic Explorer and Explorers Club Fellow Rachael Z. Miller is working to keep both macro and microplastic out of our public waterways. Rachael and her team at the ocean-protection nonprofit Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean have been at the leading edge of marine debris and microplastic research, data-driven cleanups, solution development and solution implementation since 2010. They use a combination of expedition science, innovation and education to make an impact from the surface to the seafloor in urban, inland and coastal waters worldwide from the shores of Lake Champlain in their home state of Vermont, down the length of the Hudson River, remote islands in the Gulf of Maine, the North Pole to Antarctica and thousands of miles in between.

In this presentation, learn about Rozalia Project’s solutions-oriented programs, Rachael and her team’s work in developing the Cora Ball, a consumer-scale solution to microfiber pollution, pioneering marine-debris-related educational programs, widely cited scientific work and CSI for the Ocean, a global citizen science microplastic mapping and monitoring program. She will leave you with actions everyone can take to protect our precious freshwater lakes and rivers and the one, big ocean toward which they flow.