Help to create a global map of ocean microplastic pollution

I AM visiting my hometown of The Hague on the west coast of the Netherlands and I have decided to take my family on a fun trip to the seaside. When I say “fun trip”, I of course mean an excursion to collect samples for my latest scientific research endeavour: the Big Microplastic Survey.

This project involves sampling sediment along a 30-metre stretch of beach from within five quadrants, each 1 square metre in size, and filtering it to extract any microplastic or mesoplastic fragments – pieces of plastic 1 to 5 millimetres or 5 to 25mm across, respectively. …