Twenty years ago, a fortuitous trip to the beach led to a life-changing moment for Richard Thompson.
The marine biologist was doing experiments on the seashore in England and found plastic clogging all of his scientific instruments.
“We looked at the sand samples down the microscope, and in and amongst the sand grains we could see pieces that certainly didn’t look like sand, and it was those pieces we confirmed to be plastics,” said Thompson, now the head of the International Marine Litter Research Unit at the University of Plymouth.
At the time he coined the term “microplastics” to describe the tiny bits of plastic, many smaller than the diameter of a strand of hair, that he found on beaches all around the U.K.
Now, to mark the 20th anniversary of his discovery, Thompson has written …