All-female round the world voyage hunts for pollution hotspots

(CNN)Eight hundred miles from land in the Pacific Ocean, Emily Penn had a revelation. It was the late 2000s and she was working aboard the boat Earthrace as it circumnavigated the globe. Jumping overboard for a wash, she saw a toothbrush floating by. Then a cigarette lighter. Then a bottle top. Then hundreds of plastic fragments came into view. “It just didn’t make any sense,” she recalls. Penn was in the middle of the North Pacific Gyre, an area that has become notorious for its plastic problem. A large circulating current, it causes plastic pollution to accumulate, breaking down under UV rays until they become tiny fragments called microplastics. Some fragments stay on the surface, while others sink. As microplastics, some enter the food chain — and, eventually, human bodies. The experience spurred Penn on to a career in ocean conservancy, and she’s been following the plastic ever since. Emily Penn, co-founder of eXXpedition, a series of all-women sailing voyages. In 2014 Penn co-founded eXXpedition, a series of all-women sailing voyages. Age 27, she wanted to boost female participation in sailing and science careers, through expeditions that would highlight the abundance of plastic and toxic chemicals, study its distribution in… Read full this story

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