It’s our final week of a month of refusing single-use plastic and decreasing our reliance on plastics ! Thank you all so much for participating, and I hope you all come back to these episodes whenever you want to take on a challenge to reduce your reliance on plastic. 

This week we try to Strengthen our Voice: that means educating ourselves about the issue we are trying to combat. This means finding a topic that interests you, and just spending some time this week educating yourself about the different options are available to you, or how other people may be disproportionately affected by plastic waste. Or maybe you start to participate or volunteer with organizations working to petition for plastic reduction.

Our guest this week is the phenomenal Dr. Marina Santana. Microplastics may be a term you’ve heard, but dont know much about. Marina has been investigating how these tiny plastic particles are affecting the ocean environment, and we discuss why they should be on our radar.
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RESOURCES

Officeworks recycling 

Staples recycling 

Chile Fast Fashion Desert 

Dr. Santana publications: 

• Dawson, A.L.; Santana, M. F. M.; Motti. 2023. Taking control of microplastics data: A comparison of control and blank data correction methods. Journal of Hazardous Materials.
• Gulizia, A.M.; Brodie, E.; Daumuller, R.; Bloom, S.B.; Corbett, T.; Santana, M.F.M.; Motti, C.; Vamvounis, G. 2022. Evaluating the Effect of Chemical Digestion Treatments on Polystyrene Microplastics: Recommended Updates to Chemical Digestion Protocols. Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics.
• Agostini, L.; Moreira, J.C.F.; Bendia, A.G.; Kmit, M.C.P.; Waters, L.G.; Santana, M.F.M.; Sumida, P.Y.G.; Turra, A.; Pellizari, V.H. 2021. Deep-sea plastisphere: long term experimental colonization of plastic-associated bacterial and archaeal communities in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean. Science of the Total Environment.
• Santana, M.F.M.; Moreira, F.T.; Pereira, C.D.S.; Abessa, D.M.S; Turra, A. 2018. Continuous exposure to microplastic does not cause physiological effects in the cultivated mussel Perna perna. Arch. Environ. Contamination & Toxicoly.
• Oliveira, A.L.; Barbosa, L.; Camargo, R.M.; Santana, M.F.M.; Moreira, F.; Turra, A. 2018. Integrating geotechnology in marine litter on beaches – a citizen science approach. Sustainability, Agri, Food and Environmental Research.
• Santana, M.F.M.; Turra, A. Toxicity of microplastics in the marine environment. In: A handbook of environmental toxicology. 1st Ed. Edinburgh, UK: CAB International. 2020. Pages: 436-453.

Microplastic monitoring data: https://portal.aodn.org.au/

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