PULLMAN – Captain Charles Moore will give a lecture “Our Plastic Footprint: What is Killing Our Oceans?” at 4:15 p.m. on Tuesday, April 13 in Todd 116.
Moore grew up in Long Beach, Calif., and attended University of California in San Diego where he studied chemistry and Spanish. After managing a woodworking and finishing business for 25 years, Moore created the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in 1994. The foundation focuses on the protection of the marine environment through research on pollutants in the environment and provides authoritative and educational information to the public, private and scientific communities.
In 1997, Moore was returning from a yacht race when he veered off course and stumbled upon a large stretch of floating plastic debris, now called the “Pacific garbage patch” – an area where an estimated 100 million tons of plastic is trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre.
“Every time I came on deck to survey the horizon, I saw a soap bottle, bottle cap or a shard of plastic waste bobbing by,” Moore said. “Here I was in the middle of the ocean and there was nowhere I could go to avoid the plastic.”
Since this discovery, Moore has worked on understanding and remediating the ocean’s plastic load. He has worked on three scientific papers on the topic. Moore’s work has been highlighted on numerous media outlets, including ABC’s Nightline, Good Morning America, The Wall Street Journal and the Colbert Report.
Moore will also visit the University of Idaho at 7 p.m. Monday, April 12 in the Student Union Ballroom, to talk about his discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and what it means for the environment during the Runstad Discovery Lecture, “Our Plastic Footprint.”
The WSU lecture is sponsored by the WSU Center for Environmental Research, Education and Outreach. After the lecture, there will be a reception in Todd Atrium.
Both events are free and open to the public.