Name: Hannah Huang

Social Justice Group: Microplastics (B)

Date of Fieldwork: January 8, 2025

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Valerie Tovar, Marine biologist

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 8th, 2025 we got on a zoom call with a marine biologist who works with Loggerhead Marine Life Center, Valerie Tovar. She is the conservation manager of the organization and answered a few questions about microplastics. Marine Biologists are ssciwentists who study life in the oceans. They research and observe marine organisms and ecosystems, such as oceans and saltwater lakes.

Valerie Tovar graduated with a degree in ocean biology and went to college in Florida. We found her on Instagram and messaged them asking if we could interview them about ocean life. One of the questions we asked was “How do microplastics affect the ocean, and more specifically marine life?” She told us that plastic will never go away, no matter how much we prevent it. Every animal is exposed to microplastics, and she found that fish at the bottom of the ocean had microplastics in them, which means fish closer to the land, are also going to have microplastics in them.

As apart of Valerie Tovar’s job, she goes scuba diving twice a month. While scuba diving, shes found lots of random stuff near the pier where she was diving. One of the items she has found was a traffic cone. Traffic cones are made out of thermoplastic, or rubber, which is bad for the environment. This traffic cone is going to add more microplastics into the ocean. People littering into the ocean are hurting maine life, is eventually going to hurt themselves.

Another question that we asked Valerie that is very important is, “What can microplastics do to our bodies?” Microplastics have carcinogens, which are substances that can develop cancer, and cause hormonal imbalance. Microplastics can do lots of toxic stuff to our bodies, that we should be avoiding. Avoiding microplastics in general will prevent you from getting sick from different diseases.