Marine biologist Richard Thompson was out looking at barnacles in tide pools one morning in 1993 when he started noticing small pieces of plastic deposited by the tide—lots of them. Years later, he coined the word microplastics, which helped everyone else see this new scourge too. The tiny particles have been found everywhere from clouds to the human bloodstream, but the consequences for human and environmental health are only just starting to be understood.
At first he helped organize beach cleanups; others have tried to vacuum the stuff from the seas. But in recent years Thompson, director of the Marine Institute at the U.K.’s University of Plymouth, has been clear about what the only solution really is: as he wrote recently, “regulators, governments, and citizens all urgently need to turn off the tide of plastic pollution at its source by reducing the production of plastics.” From his pioneering research to pushing for policy change, Thompson has been pivotal to efforts to protect the ocean, and us all.
McKibben is an author and environmentalist