Ten years ago, skipper Emily Penn discovered the horrors of ocean plastic as she hitchhiked around the planet on the record-breaking biofueled boat Earthrace. She felt compelled to make a change, so she did what any normal 22-year-old fresh out of university would do: Organize the largest-ever community-led waste cleanup from a tiny Tongan island.

“It’s also really key for the women on board who join us on these voyages to have that experience of collecting data themselves… if it’s nearly impossible to separate a piece of plastic from plankton using a microscope, how are the fish meant to manage it? ”

–Emily Penn

Read the full story at: Robb Report
Photo credit: Exxpedition.com website