Name: Paloma Sherak

Social Justice Group: 2022-2023, Environment: Microplastics

Date of Fieldwork: January 12, 2023

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Plastic Pollution Coalition

Type of Fieldwork: Webinar

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

On January 12, 2023, a few of my group members and I joined a webinar about microplastics, specifically microfibers. The webinar had many experts talking about the problems about microfibers and solutions that they are working on. One of the speakers was Dr. Judith Weis, who is a professor of biological sciences at Rutgers University. Another person was Meli Hinostroza, who is the co-founder of Aya Eco-Fashion and Arms of Andes. She and her brother started a clothing company that is completely eco-friendly. The other speaker is the chief scientist of Planet Care. Him and his team are working on filters for washing machines that collect all of the microfibers. And Madeline MacGillivray was the discussion moderator.

It was really interesting to hear what they had to say about microfibers. Our group hadn’t focused on microfibers, so we all learned a lot of interesting facts that I didn’t know about. For example, I learned that over ⅓ of microplastics in the environment are textiles, which is surprising because when people talk about microplastics, they never really think about microfibers, when they are really a huge problem. Microfiber was a way bigger problem than I thought and I learned a lot.