Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Impact of Plastic on Wildlife

A plastic bag or a six pack ring floating by in the ocean would cause someone to cringe. Large pieces of plastics are easy to spot, campaign around and clean up. But who cleans up the nearly invisible pieces of plastic floating around bodies of water? Those tiny pieces are calledmicroplastics.

Dr. Terry Root, a senior fellow emerita at theWoods Institute for the Environmentat Stanford University, is focusing on this particular issue. Her research focus is addressing how plants and animals change as a result of the changing climate. The Nobel Peace Prize Award co-winner will speak about the damaging effects of microplastics in an event called “Innocent Victims: Impact of Plastic on Wildlife” this Friday, April 12 at 6:30 p.m. at Congregational United Church in Punta Gorda.

Dr. Root phones into the studio today to teach us about the way microplastics are choking the life out of plants and wildlife.

 

Copyright 2019 WGCU

Julie Glenn is the host of Gulf Coast Live. She has been working in southwest Florida as a freelance writer since 2007, most recently as a regular columnist for the Naples Daily News. She began her broadcasting career in 1993 as a reporter/anchor/producer for a local CBS affiliate in Quincy, Illinois. After also working for the NBC affiliate, she decided to move to Parma, Italy where she earned her Master’s degree in communication from the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Her undergraduate degree in Mass Communication is from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
Mike Kiniry is producer of Gulf Coast Live, and co-creator and host of the WGCU podcast Three Song Stories: Biography Through Music. He first joined the WGCU team in the summer of 2003 as an intern while studying Communication at Florida Gulf Coast University.