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Chapter One

Plastic Pollution

In the famous 1870 science fi ction novel Twenty Thousand
Leagues Under the Sea, a captain named Nemo explores
the vast reaches of the underwater world in a futuristic sub-
marine. Today there is a place in the southern Pacifi c Ocean
that shares its nickname with the fi ctional captain. Point
Nemo, offi cially known as the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibil-
ity, is more than 1,000 miles (1,610 km) from the nearest
land, making it the most remote place in the world’s oceans.
Nemo, which is Latin for “no one,” is a fi tting name for an
area that very few people have ever visited.
During an around-the-world ocean race in 2018, sailors
on the yacht Turn the Tide on Plastic took water samples
as their boat sailed through Point Nemo. After sending the
samples to Germany for analysis, they learned that there
were twenty-six tiny pieces of plastic in every 35.3 cubic feet
(1 cu. m) of seawater. “We’ve found microplastics, sadly, in
nearly all of our samples,” says Sören Gutekunst, science
consultant for the ocean race, who analyzed the samples.
“This shows how pervasive and vast the problem is already.” 4

A Far-Reaching Problem
Finding plastic in the oceans’ most remote location is a trou-
bling indication of the extent of plastic pollution in the seas.
Numbers confi rm the enormity of the problem. According to
environmental advocacy organization Ocean Conservancy,
every year 8.8 million tons (8 million metric tons) of plas-
tic makes its way into the world’s oceans; that equals the

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