Microplastic Pollution Research at Sea
Ocean Conservancy scientist, Dr. Britta Baechler, swaps her lab coat for a lifejacket to study microplastics at sea aboard the all-female eXXpedition voyage
I have been studying plastic pollution for more than a decade. I’ve analyzed hundreds of samples in labs, pored over data and spent years thinking hard about where plastics go once they leave our hands and enter the environment. I love doing work on the water—this was a big part of my previous professional roles in Alaska and in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands.
And here’s where it took me! I was thrilled to have the opportunity to join the first leg of eXXpedition’s voyage in the South Pacific this past spring, trading my lab coat for a lifejacket to study microplastics at sea. Sailing from Auckland, New Zealand, to the Bay of Islands aboard the 70-foot research vessel Wind Shift over 10 days, our crew of 12 women conducted ocean water-surface sampling via manta tow nets (a long cone-shaped mesh net), cleaned up debris on remote beaches and examined city streets with measuring tapes and field equipment. Our purpose? To collect key data to help us better understand the flow of plastics from land to sea.
Our all-female guest crew—hence the XX in “eXXpedition”—brought aboard expertise from the fields of structural engineering, circular economy strategy, sustainable fashion, plastics research, robotics and more. Together, we represented a remarkable cross-section of disciplines united around a shared concern for the health of our ocean.
Seeing it with my own eyes
We found plastics of all shapes and sizes everywhere we went—in the city streets of Auckland, while crossing the Hauraki Gulf and even at Aotea Great Barrier Island (one of the most remote and protected stretches of New Zealand’s coastline). Our ocean is vast and some of these places felt far removed from the centers of human activity, but this eXXpedition was a good reminder that plastic doesn’t respect remoteness. It moves, accumulates and shows up where we least expect.
Working alongside local NGO Sustainable Coastlines, we arrived on a remote stretch of beach on Aotea Great Barrier Island to audit and clean up any plastics we came across. What we found there told the same story our Auckland street surveys did: We found bottle caps, food packaging, fragments, plastic pellets and fishing debris. The everyday materials of modern life—but weathered, broken and scattered.
Science at sea
One of my favorite parts of the voyage (which was also one of the most challenging, if I’m being honest!) was the sea-surface manta trawl analyses we did onboard. I found out quickly that sorting microplastics from krill-laden seawater samples under a microscope while sailing is not for the faint of stomach.
The most common plastic culprit we found in those samples? Microplastic fibers. This type of microplastic is no wider than a human hair and is the most common type of microplastic found in the environment. Microplastic fibers can come from a variety of sources like cigarette butts, weathered ropes or wet wipes, but actually, most microplastic fibers shed from synthetic clothing and textiles. Laundering is a major source— shockingly, a single load of laundry can generate up to 18 million microfibers.
And yet, we found these tiny plastic fibers floating in the ocean many miles away from the nearest washing machine.
In my lab research, I have found microplastic fibers time and time again, but there’s something even more sobering about hand-picking them out of a seawater sample collected from pristine-looking waters. It was a good reminder of why understanding where plastic comes from, how it moves and where it ends up is so critical to addressing the problem at its roots.
Filter Out NSFW Microplastics
What I’m bringing back
Studying plastic pollution from the deck of a boat in some of the most remote waters in the Southern Hemisphere made me appreciate the work I do even more. It also made me appreciate how important people are in this giant puzzle of plastic pollution solutions. The plastic pollution crisis is a human problem, and solving it requires all of us. The courage and dedication of the women I shared those 10 days with is something I won’t forget. Going to sea, doing the science and pushing through discomfort to collect data that matters was not easy. We were seasick some days and exhilarated others. Despite that fact, we showed up for it fully, every day.
The plastic is out there, even in far-flung corners of the ocean. And the answer is not to be paralyzed by that fact, but to use it as fuel. Every sample we collected is now a data point in a larger story about where plastic comes from and where it goes. Every cleanup, every surface trawl, every street block walked and every hour spent at a microscope are parts of building the evidence base that informs policies, regulations and systems-level changes that can actually turn this crisis around.
Cleaning up beaches and coastlines is valuable and necessary work. But we also must stop plastic from entering the ocean in the first place—through stronger policy, better product design and real investment in waste management infrastructure everywhere. Luckily, when it comes to the most common microplastics in the ocean— microplastic fibers—there is already an effective, affordable solution to immediately reduce microplastics coming from our laundry by roughly 90%: washing machine filters. These filters act just like laundry lint filters in our dryers, capturing fibers in tightly-woven mesh and effectively preventing them from leaving our homes and leaking into the environment.
What can you do?
There’s no better time to tackle plastic pollution than right now, during Plastic Free July™! Take two minutes to add your name and call on your elected leaders to combat those pesky, dangerous microfibers that are pouring into our ocean daily—like the ones I found from my samples at sea. Together, we can stop plastic pollution at the source and protect our ocean forever and for everyone.
My biggest takeaways from this experience? People are remarkable. Our ocean is remarkable. And our ocean is worth fighting for, including from 70 feet of sailing vessel in the South Pacific, staring down a microscope with a pair of tweezers and a queasy stomach.
The eXXpedition South Pacific I voyage ran from April 27 to May 6, 2026, sailing from Auckland to the Bay of Islands. Learn more about the research team and our itinerary at https://exxpedition.com/voyage/auckland-to-bay-of-islands/.
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