Plastic Ocean, Capt. Charles Moore
Plastic Ocean, Capt. Charles Moore
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Plastic Ocean
How a Sea Captain's Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans

Author: Capt. Charles Moore, Cassandra Phillips

Narrator: Mel Foster

Unabridged: 12 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/31/2011

Synopsis

In the summer of 1997, Charles Moore set sail from Honolulu with the sole intention of returning home after competing in a trans-Pacific race. To get to California, he and his crew took a shortcut through the seldom-traversed North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a vast "oceanic desert" where winds are slack and sailing ships languish. There, Moore realized his catamaran was surrounded by a "plastic soup." He had stumbled upon the largest garbage dump on the planet—a spiral nebula where plastic outweighed zooplankton, the ocean's food base, by a factor of six to one.

In Plastic Ocean, Moore recounts his ominous findings and unveils the secret life and hidden properties of plastics. From milk jugs to polymer molecules small enough to penetrate human skin or be unknowingly inhaled, plastic is now suspected of contributing to a host of ailments including infertility, autism, thyroid dysfunction, and some cancers. A call to action as urgent as Rachel Carson's seminal Silent Spring, Moore's sobering revelations will be embraced by activists, concerned parents, and seafaring enthusiasts concerned about the deadly impact and implications of this manmade blight.

About Capt. Charles Moore

Capt. Charles Moore has logged over 100,000 miles on research voyages. His 1999 study shocked the scientific world when it found six times more plastic fragments by weight in the central Pacific than the associated zooplankton. His study of discharges by plastics processing plants resulted in the passage of the Nurdle Bill, prohibiting the discharge of pre-production plastic pellets in California. His work has been featured on Nightline, Good Morning America, NPR, National Geographic, and in the Wall Street Journal.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Book Him Danno on May 21, 2012

You can argue about the environment, whether the crisis is manmade or natural, and what we should do about it until you are blue in the face. The problem most of the green movement is faith based and is actually volatile to true science. But trash is an exception. Trash is clearly a man-made object,......more

Goodreads review by Kerry on July 24, 2021

This book was both enlightening and scary. Well written and presented. Given all the scientific information contained in the book, it was not a difficult read and presented the facts in laymen's terms. It brought home the point of the vastness of the plastics in the gyre, its harm to sea life and hu......more

Goodreads review by Amanda on June 02, 2015

I'm doing an average here -- 2 stars for writing style, 4 stars for topic/nature of the book. The first third of the book was quite hard for me to get into -- I thought there was a lot of extra info that didn't need to be in the book (did not care about boat details and all the "salty sailor" lingo).......more

Goodreads review by Karen on November 14, 2011

All the plastics ever manufactured, still exists. Plastics absorb & concentrates toxins. Ultimately billions of tons of plastic finds its way into our ocean and is consumed by marine life. As horrifying as this is, it gets worse. Plastic bits eventually blanket the ocean floor in a type of plastic s......more

Goodreads review by R.d. on January 28, 2012

This is a fascinating, if not depressing, book about the pollution of our oceans by plastic products. It seems there's no end to man's ability to muck up perfectly pristine environments. The book is a bit heavy on the side of factoids, but I suppose Captain Moore would rather err on the side of over......more

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