Authors & Artists Online Series: Erica Cirino “Trashed rivers, seas of plastic: How your habits on land harm the ocean”

Erica Cirino “Trashed rivers, seas of plastic: How your habits on land harm the ocean”

Presented online via Zoom
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
6:00 pm

$5.00 Non-Members

Members Free
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The ocean is often depicted as ground zero of the world’s plastic pollution crisis. But it turns out that a minority of plastic in the oceans—about 20 percent—is there as a result of dumping at sea. The vast majority of pollution—about 80 percent—blows from land to sea, or flows into the oceans from rivers and estuaries. Erica shares her experiences reporting on the front lines of the plastic pollution crisis—revealing how land, rivers, and sea are interconnected—and gives advice to Connecticut River residents on how to minimize their impact.

Erica Cirino is a writer, artist and wildlife rehabilitator who explores the intersection of the human and nonhuman worlds. Her work is focused on the human connection to nature–wild creatures in particular–and human impact on planet Earth. She is currently writing a book about the global plastic pollution crisis and her experiences covering the issue, documenting plastic pollution in nature, the latest science that measures the extent of the crisis, and new solutions that could prevent further ecological destruction and harm to wildlife. Her work has taken her sailing twice across wide swaths of the Pacific, across the Atlantic, in Danish waters, in California’s waters, and around Iceland; to Southeast Asia, across the U.S. and Western Europe; the Caribbean; Polynesia and beyond. When she’s not on the road with her notebooks and cameras, she lives in Essex, Connecticut, and Copenhagen, Denmark, with her husband, who is also a sailor.

To take a peak into life on the water with Erica, and see what it was like to sail across the most polluted part of the ocean, check out this YouTube video:  Sailing inside the Pacific Garbage Patch