About this item
An exciting account of a scientists expedition across the Pacific on a home-made "junk raft" in order to learn more about plastic marine pollution A scientist, activist, and inveterate adventurer, Eriksen and his co-navigator, Joel Paschal, construct a "junk raft" made of plastic trash and set themselves adrift from Los Angeles to Hawaii, with no motor or support vessel, confronting perilous cyclones, food shortages, and a fast decaying raft. As Eriksen recounts his struggles to keep afloat, he immerses readers in the deep history of the plastic pollution crisis and the movement that has arisen to combat it. The proliferation of cheap plastic products during the twentieth century has left the world awash in trash. Meanwhile, the plastics industry, with its lobbying muscle, fights tooth and nail against any changes that would affect its lucrative status quo, instead defending poorly designed products and deflecting responsibility for the harm they cause. But, as Eriksen shows, the tide is turning in the battle to save the worlds oceans. He recounts the successful efforts that he and many other activists are waging to fight corporate influence and demand that plastics producers be held accountable. Junk Raft provides concrete, actionable solutions and an empowering message: its within our power to change the throw-away culture for the sake of our planet.
About the Author
Marcus Eriksen is the director of research for the 5 Gyres Institute, an environmental science and advocacy nonprofit organization that he founded with his wife, Anna Cummins, in 2009. With firsthand experience from over twenty ocean-crossing expeditions, he has written extensively on the impact of plastic pollution in the world's oceans and has published research on the distribution of plastics in the subtropical gyres. In 2013, Eriksen and colleagues discovered plastic microbeads in the Great Lakes, which helped lead to a broad national campaign that culminated in the successful US Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015. Eriksen earned a PhD in science education from the University of Southern California in 2003. That summer, fulfilling a promise made to himself as a US Marine in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he built a raft and floated the length of the Mississippi River, which became the subject of his first book, My River Home (Beacon Press, 2007) . It was that experience, and the renewed love of life, land, and sea that it brought, coupled with the never-ending trickle of plastic trash to the Gulf of Mexico, that spurred the course of his career.
