Co-Presented by Dr. Mikki-McComb Kobza, executive director Ocean First Institute, and Fjallraven guide Dr. Kateryna Lapina
6 p.m., Thursday, September 28, 2023
Fjallraven Boulder, 1048 Pearl Street, Boulder
Seats limited; Open to the public; admission free; refreshments served
For years, environmentalists have been concerned about the impacts of plastic pollution in oceans, lakes, and rivers, including the high altitudes of Colorado. Much of this concern began with larger, more visible plastic documented in oceans and on shores around the world. More recently, however, concerns have increased around smaller pieces of plastic referred to as microplastics.
Microplastics are either produced to be small, such as microbeads in exfoliating products, or produced when larger pieces of plastic break down once they enter the environment. Co-Presenter Dr. Mikki McComb-Kobza, OFI executive director, will explain OFI’s work researching the microplastics crisis, including recent studies of water and sediment samples from the St. Vrain Creek in Lyons.
Research into microplastics is still in the early stages. Advanced methodologies to detect microplastics in the environment are still in development, but the crisis is real: scientists have sampled aquatic environments across the world, from the tropics to the Arctic, and microplastics are found in every environment sampled to date. Hundreds of species across the world have been found with microplastics in their stomachs. This includes several species of fish and shellfish found with ingested microplastics, many of which are sold for human consumption.
Ocean First Institute (OFI), based in Boulder and Key Largo, is uniquely positioned to study and educate on the impacts of plastic pollution from mountains to mangroves. For the past three years, OFI has been funded to run a “Microplastics Pollution Program,” which is a citizen science microplastic pollution monitoring program to obtain baseline data on the presence/absence and quantity of microplastics and microfibers in water and sediment in rivers within watersheds in Colorado’s Front Range. It will expand in 2024 into sampling of Colorado alpine snowpack through its citizen science efforts.
In Florida, OFI works with local schools and students to survey for microplastics and plastic debris, and to create ambassadors for change in local communities to reduce single-use plastic. Currently, the main hub for this Florida work is at OFI’s lab in Key Largo. In local schools, OFI implements microplastics curriculum and surveys ocean water using large collecting nets off OFI’s research vessel. OFI also uses a microplastic imaging and analyzer system, called FT-IR to quantify how much plastic and what types of plastic (from macro to micro sizes) are collected in the environment.
Learn more about the crisis of microplastics and how Ocean First Institute research is helping to solve this giant plastic problem.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pc1jfA4guw
The evening’s co-presenter is Kateryna Lapina. Originally from Kharkiv, Ukraine, Kateryna came to the U.S. to pursue her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering. She studied the impact of forest fires on air quality and analyzed the measurements collected at a mountain peak in the middle of the Atlantic to understand the long-range transport of pollution.
In 2009, Kateryna moved to Colorado to pursue research in air quality modeling. While working on her research she became actively involved in public outreach projects and co-founded Colorado Ozone Gardens to educate the general public on causes and effects of ozone pollution in Colorado. One of the goals of this project was to encourage Colorado residents to modify their lifestyles in order to mitigate the ozone problem.