Spoonful of Shock: ‘Saving Our Seas' dives into plastic pollution problem plaguing our planet
'Saving Our Seas: Compounding Catastrophe Pt. 1: Plastic Problems'
KTLA's new ocean conservation series 'Saving Our Seas' dives into one of the largest and most worrisome issues facing our planet… the plastic problem. It's a compounding catastrophe that has already begun affecting the creatures all the way up the food chain, including mankind.
In this episode, we partner with the Monterey Bay Aqaurium to take a deeper look at the platic predicament and how it's affecting all of us on this planet. Margaret Spring, Chief Conservation & Science Officer at MBA recently returned from a negotiaition of the Global Plastics Treaty, which aims to end plastic pollution on our planet.
'175 plus countries agreed to negotiate a treaty to end plastic pollution, which is great news,' says Spring. 'The discussion is how. And that's where we are.'
Spring says microplastics have inundated our food chain, 'If you've ever seem marine snow when you're down in the ocean, those little pieces are things that animals eat. Microplastics look a lot like that… and so they'll be eating that instead of food.'
But Spring says it's not just sea creatures who will suffer, 'I would say human health is part of the plastics crisis.'
In fact, Dr. Matthew Campen, Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Albuquerque authored a shocking new study that found plastics in human brains have spiked 50 percent in just the last 8 years.
'When you take our numbers from the mass spectrometry,' Dr. Campen says, 'it comes out to about 7 grams of plastic in the brain. Which is approximately the weight of a plastic spoon.'
'If these numbers are correct, the brain would be 99.5% brain, and .05% plastic,' he said.
Dr. Campen says we've only just begun to understand how plastics will affect us.
'We worry that there's some things it's already doing and we haven't realized it yet. For fertility especially, sperm counts, women's health cancer rates for certain things that are increasing over time, that are not explained,' Dr. Campen says, 'and of course neurological diseases.'
For more information about how you can get involved, visit our partners at Monterey Bay Aquarium's Act For the Ocean page.
Stay tuned for part 2 of Compounding Catastrophe, where we look at the innovators shaping the solution. To watch the full series anytime, log onto KTLA.com/sos.
This Segment aired on the KTLA Weekend Morning News on Saturday, March 15, 2025.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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