Plastic Studies | Poring Over Polymers

DAN: Alright. Well, welcome to catching up. We are sitting across the table right now with somebody who has a very, very unique position here at the ocean cleanup.

And wow. I’m losing this thing. I didn’t wanna stop you because you started well. They they don’t make these. This is nothing is working right today. Including my brain.

Get it. My train leaves at 8. Yeah. I’m like, I don’t I cannot get back in the office. I’m stuck here because I don’t have a key. Easy. I’m all jealous. Okay. Let’s give this another try. Things seem to now be working. About eaten.

Once a year, we have this time period where almost the entire team comes together no matter where you’re scattered all over the world, and we all come Rotterdam where the headquarters are, and we have, like, a week of, beach days, meetings, stuff like that kind of, you know, midyear review type stuff that we do.

And that’s what’s happening right now. And yesterday, we were all out at What we call our beach day, which we go out to the North Sea, and everybody has just a a big day of, like, meeting and talking and socializing.

And so My voice is a little bit wrecked today from the talking, we’ll call it.

And But I am sitting here at the table with Sarah Jean who has a very unique position here at The Ocean Cleanup. Sarah, introduce yourself and and just give me a quick sort of summary of what exactly you do here at Doshin Cleanup.

Thank you, Dan, for having me. I’m, Sarah Jean Roy. I’m a French Canadian, and I’ve been, with The Ocean Cleanup for a while now.

I’m working in the research team, And, I’m actually, an oceanographer. So that’s my, I’m a biogeochemist. I used to work on Oceanographic vessels measuring greenhouse gases and climate related gas in the ocean.

And, now I’m studying a little More like the degradation of different types of polymers in the ocean, trying to date these polymers, like for how long have they been in the water, And, have a few projects also in relation with, fishing gear in the ocean and how much of this pollution that actually comes from the fishing gear industry.

Been fun. How has your week been here being with your team? Because it it’s an important thing to to at least once a year be all in the location in person.

Yeah. Not not online because you guys are scattered from New Zealand to Switzerland at times To Hawaii. Yeah. Not to mention when people are out on the research trips and they’re in the middle of the ocean and at rivers or whatever.

What what is this week been like for you and your team? Yeah. It’s been great. We must meet maybe 2 to 3 times every year because we have also scientific conferences. Eaten.

Right. So we met in Busan in South Korea, for the marine international marine debris conference. So that was a big one. Then we met also for the ocean Ocean science meeting, in, Palma de Mallorca in Spain, and now here in the office.

So In the office, it’s always busy. We have meetings, we have lunches, then we have dinners. And this week, we had the beach day, but it’s wonderful.

Evil. Like, it’s all about being with people, working with people next to each other and just discussing and Meeting new members of the UC and Lina because every time I visit, there’s always, like, 40 new members.

So this trip has been about making new friends and colleagues and and just discussing with other teams also to make sure that we are all aligned and know what each others are doing.

Yeah. It is incredible. Like, every time I come back too, You walk into the building, and it’s like you’re you you don’t even know if you’re in the right place because we’re growing so large so fast.

And being out at the beach yesterday and seeing everybody in one spot was, like, overwhelming, but it’s so fun to meet people that are in complete random things and doing things that all come together in this puzzle to do what what we’re doing.

But you’re also kind of a badass.

I’ve heard this rumor that you’re, like, an army. Like, you like, tell me a little bit about you. I mean, there’s a lot that you’re a surfer. You live in Hawaii. You’re French Canadian. A lot going on over there.

That’s French Canadian. I mean, no. No. I just have, like, maybe I did I did a lot. I mean, I started working early. So I was 16 and I wanted to go to the university and, I just decided, okay, I’m gonna start working.

I even started working at 12, so some small jobs here and there, but I wanted to be independent and just, like, do what I wanted to do. So, university is I started to be in the military.

So, and then I, yeah, it was great. I was young and then we were training outside quite a bit, always, Like outside during summer, winter, I was in the reserves. So I was every weekend plus, like, Tuesday, Friday night.

So it took a lot of my time. I didn’t have a weekend for years years until my PhD. And then during the PhD, I was on ship and traveling on oceanographic easy. So, yeah, it was a lot of work, but, yeah, it was a good experience.

I was in the Canadian army for 13 years And then I became the first, female sergeant in the 1st Canadian regiment. So that was a big one. And, I was deployed twice in Afghanistan.

It was a good experience. I was working with different teams, the German, the French team, the Canadian, of course, and also some Americans. So it was Kabul the first time, 2003, and Kandahar in 2,009.

So this is all during wartime that you’re over there? Yeah. And then you’re in the you’re in the Canadian army as a sergeant? Yeah. What’s How does the road twist from I know. Afghanistan to an oceanographer?

I know. But, actually, I started so that the main goal for me was to pay my studies. So eventually, I was still doing the army, but I was always studying. But I took, like, a 6 month break for training. Uh-huh.

But while I was in Afghanistan the first time, I was doing my bachelor’s, in biology. And the second tour, I was, like, finishing my master, and I remember I was writing my methodology and result in in tanks in the middle of nowhere.

Wow. So yeah. Yeah. That was, I had to combine both, and, we were in bunkers, and I was studying my online class.

To go forward. Yeah, it was a good experience. But, yeah, I have wonderful friends. And In the end, my second tour in Afghanistan, I was working with an Afghan woman, and it was a very special experience for me.

So I would never change that, but I’m kind of a peaceful person in the end. So at some point, I was like, this is not me. I mean, it was wonderful experiences.

Nothing bad happened. But in the end, I mean, you’re still working in, like, in a kind of environment that’s not me. So I decided to Quit, but I did well at the right time, I think. And then I moved on. I was done with 2 p 2 masters.

ENDING UP IN HAWAII
I did my 2nd master in Brazil, and then I got a fellowship to do, my PhD in biochemistry in Spain. So I moved to Barcelona. I stayed there for five and a half years, and then I moved to Hawaii for continuing to study.

But science has always been my passion, and there was no doubt. It’s just The army the Canadian army has is pretty good about it and allowed me to basically study at the same time as I would work.

So that was wonderful. Okay. So so then you end up in Hawaii, and now you are surfing girl. What what are your other hobbies?

I saw you surfing day in the North Sea, which was a little bit different than, I’m sure, Hawaii. No. It was great. We I was surfing with Helene, Thomas, and then Laura. I mean, it was Our team, so it was very special.

Last time we went in, Busan in South Korea for a conference. We all served together. But, yeah, I guess this is, yeah, this is my sport. This is how I switch off after work and before evening meetings. This is how I meditate.

So, surfing Has been good to me. I haven’t surfed for that long compared to people in Hawaii and, but I love it. Since 20 15 I’ve been surfing, so, my partner too, so we take turns and now hopefully my daughter will pick up soon.

But, yeah, In Hawaii, it’s, island life. So, I mean, it’s pretty quiet. I’m always happy to come here to the office and go out and have A social life.

You guys are so social. It’s amazing. So I love it. But, yeah, simple life in Hawaii. We hike, we run, we surf, and we work. We work hard and then we go travel once a year to not have a big carbon footprint.

So when we when we see the office, we try to see our family at the same time. So it’s been good, but, yeah, work is amazing. I could not ask for a better team to work with.

But you also had a pretty awesome moment where you got to do a TED talk. Oh, yeah. What was that like? What was the experience of doing that like? And then tell everybody what what the topic was.

And in. And there were some just incredible lines in there. Like, I want everybody to listen to it, but, like, when you were talking about The yoga. When somebody takes yoga, they think they’re I’m zen.

I’m doing this, and probably all the clothes they’re wearing is made out of plastic either. Yeah. And ends up in, you know, places that Yeah. At least a percentage of it. Yeah. But it’s just a fascinating, thought.

Yeah. I know. What was it like for you? Yeah, the TED Talk was a great experience. And, I mean, I learned a lot, so it’s a long process. I mean, I got the chance to have someone inviting me to be part of it, and I said, yes.

But you would think maybe it’s easy, but it’s a long time process. It takes months to put together, and then You have people following you and helping you.

So I’m sure we’ll do better for the next one. But, yeah, the first one was a little stressful, but It’s a great opportunity just to sell your science in a way that you make it accessible to everyone. So I really enjoyed it.

And, yeah, I started the story basically, like, Just talking to the audience saying then the clothing industry is a big one. I mean, we often talk about, like, hard plastic fishing net, But the clothing industry is a huge one.

We have 62% of our clothes that are made out of synthetic materials. So nylon, Crop polyester. I mean, there are so many different types of materials that can be used that are made out of plastic. So the the analogy was like, Okay.

You’re doing yoga. You think you’re very zen and healthy in nature, but you’re actually covered in plastic because most of the technical clothes and sport clothes All made out of synthetic materials, so which is kind of sad.

And, I guess I mentioned then when you wear your synthetic clothing, you have all of these Fibers that shed and if it’s made out of plastic, then you shed plastic.

But even more so when you wash your clothes for 7 kilograms of polyester, like a wash Of 7 kilograms of plastic loads, you have about 749,000 microfibers made out of plastic that gets Washed and then eventually it goes into your gray water.

And then we don’t have the facilities to filter these fibers. So So a lot of them will escape into, like, water circuits or in rivers and maybe eventually into the ocean.

So all of this plastic that you thought was once good, Like, in safe because, I mean, you you bought it and then you take care of it, you don’t discard it.

You’re actually discarding a part of it. So that’s something to think of. Probably a reason why at the beginning, I was excited by, like, clothes made out of, like, plastic bottles used.

Found in the Maldives, for example. So I got excited by the idea, but then I started working on microfibers and I was like, no.

That’s not the right thing to do because you pick up the plastic, you create a shirt, and then you wash it, and then this plastic part of it goes back into nature. So Anyway, that’s just a thought. So I was like, this is kind of silly.

So but, yeah, that was one of the easy. But, yeah, the overall talk was about one of the study we did at the University of Hawaii. So, my peer, Samuel Wilson, Sarah Ferran, they were actually measuring Methane production from seawater, and they found out that the concentrations of methane were much higher than what they expected. And they went back to their experimental protocol, and they realized, oh, wait a minute.

Most of this methane is actually coming from the bottles easy. Made out of plastic that are incubated and then exposed to UV light. So that was big. And I joined and I was like, Hey, there’s nobody taking up this project.

I think it’s gonna be a big project. And at that time, I was, like, just finishing my PhD in biogeochemistry, and I had a few Projects and I had a running group where we would pick up trash.

So, I mean, I was I wasn’t too helping and trying to clean up our environment. But then I was like, maybe I can do Science in plastic and also my passion outside of work. So, yeah, my supervisor said, yes, please take this on.

So I did. And we realized four things. So the 6 most common types of plastic in the world, they all produce greenhouse gases when exposed to UV light. This is a pretty big thing already.

Then the polyethylene is the most produced, consumed and discarded in the environment is the type of plastic that is emitting the most greenhouse gases. So, you know, a lot of bags and containers are made out of polyethylene.

So This type of plastic is the one producing the most. So that was the second big finding. Then we we were like, okay, then we We’re gonna focus on polyethylene because it’s an important one and we had to, like, narrow the study.

So then we were like, okay, we’re gonna look at 3 grams of pellets eaten. Polyethylene and then 3 grams of powder. And then we discovered it’s about 488 times more methane produced with the powder compared to the pellets.

So it means as your bottle degrades and fragments in the environment, then, basically, what happened is that it’s producing more and more greenhouse gases just because there’s more surface area.

So there’s more like Surface for the UV to get in contact with the plastic.

So that’s awful. So the earlier we remove the plastic from the environment, the better because we don’t want it to, like, Even the creation of cracks and micro fractures before breaking, this increases the surface area.

So this is also an issue. So, That was the 3rd big highlight. And then the 4th one, I’m an oceanographer, so I looked at plastics submerged in water. But then we did the same experiment with plastic exposed to air.

And this is where it was mind blowing because, the plastic exposed to Air was producing almost 3 times more methane and 76 more, times more polyethylene, C2H4. So we were like, oh my god.

So this has big implication. We often talk of plastic in the ocean, but any types of plastic that is easily exposed to UV light. It can be your house, playgrounds, greenhouses, cars. They all emit greenhouse gases.

So it’s not only pollution, it’s any types of plastic. So actually then plastic pollution in general and plastic Use and consumption is directly related to climate change. So it’s a big one. So that was a big study.

Yeah. It made a lot of noise, but the next step is like how significant it is and, how much plastic We have out there exposed to UV. And that’s the big question. We look at like different ways of measuring plastic pollution.

But even if it’s not considered as pollution like a car, which is in the end, if we think in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and greenhouse gas Emissions from the the production process.

Then if we look at all of the surface area and types of polymers of all plastic in the world, then what’s the the contribution in terms of greenhouse gas production?

That’s the next big question. Right. Interesting. Yeah. So Boy and Slat’s not the only one that can do a TED talk in this organization.

I’m sure there must be other people. But there will be a lot of good people to do TED Talks. I just got lucky and had a nice invitation, but actually I’ve got asked for another TED Talk that I might be doing in the future.

Either. So Nice. You can request for it. I’m sure we could have a couple of good candidates. Yeah. For sure. And I think especially as this organization grows, everybody has very important things to talk about.

And and this this whole issue is becoming so global, and so people are so interested in it That I think it’s it’s important for for every engineer, researcher, operations, every aspect of this this organization should be getting out on some sort of a stage besides what we put out on the communication side.

I mean, it’s this is how this store this is how this problem will stop Is by drawing the awareness and every unique aspect of what’s going on, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And the TED talk is a good formula. It’s short and sweet.

It Explains a lot. It’s for everyone. So Yeah. Yeah. Let’s encourage other team members to go out there. Yeah. Sure. So let’s do that.