Overview

In the summer of 1997, Charles Moore set sail from Honolulu with the sole intention of returning home after competing in a trans-Pacific race. To get to California, he and his crew took a shortcut through the seldom-traversed North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a vast oceanic desert where winds are slack and sailing ships languish. There, Moore realized his catamaran was surrounded by a plastic soup. He had stumbled upon the largest garbage dump on the planet--a spiral nebula where plastic outweighed zooplankton, the ocean's food base, by a factor of six to one. In Plastic Ocean, Moore recounts his ominous findings and unveils the secret life and hidden properties of plastics. From milk jugs to polymer molecules small enough to penetrate human skin or be unknowingly inhaled, plastic is now suspected of contributing to a host of ailments including infertility, autism, thyroid dysfunction, and some cancers. A call to action as urgent as Rachel Carson's seminal Silent Spring, Moore's sobering revelations will be embraced by activists, concerned parents, and seafaring enthusiasts concerned about the deadly impact and implications of this manmade blight.

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Reviews

"A hero . . . Moore is the first person to have pursued serious scientific research by sampling the garbage patch.-- ""The New York Times"" ""An ocean hero's call to action."" -- ""Forbes"" ""Highly readable, thoughtful, honest, and determined, Plastic Ocean is a book with staying power."" -- ""Booklist"" ""The author is an impassioned, fiercely inquisitive writer, detailing the many unorthodox ways he's managed to get these issues into the news and in peer-reviewed science journals. His account is chilling, but with an underlying message of optimism: If human behaviors change, we can still save the oceans, and ourselves. Fast-paced and electrifying, Moore's story is 'gonzo science' at its best."" -- ""Kirkus Reviews"""

Author Information

Capt. Charles Moore has logged over 100,000 miles on research voyages. His 1999 study shocked the scientific world when it found six times more plastic fragments by weight in the central Pacific than the associated zooplankton. His study of discharges by plastics processing plants resulted in the passage of the Nurdle Bill, prohibiting the discharge of pre-production plastic pellets in California. His work has been featured on Nightline, Good Morning America, NPR, National Geographic, and in the Wall Street Journal. Cassandra Phillips has worked as a newspaper reporter and won substantial grant funding from the USDA Small Business Innovation and Research program to research plastic's effects on orchids. She lives in Kamuela, Hawaii. Mel Foster has narrated over 150 audiobooks and has won several awards. Twice an Audie finalist for 1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History by Charles Bracelen Flood and Finding God in Unexpected Places by Philip Yancey, he won for the latter title. He has also won two AudioFile Earphones Awards. Best known for mysteries, Mel has also narrated classic authors such as Thoreau, Nabokov, and Whitman.

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