HEALTH: EMILY PENN ON MICROPLASTICS

Emily Penn is a British ocean advocate and skipper dedicated to studying environmental challenges in the most remote parts of our planet. She has trawled for microplastics on a voyage across the North Pacific Gyre, joined Parley Ocean Schools to teach in the Maldives and Hawai’i, and rounded the planet on a record-breaking bio-fuelled boat.

As much at home in and on the water as she is on dry land, in 2018 Emily founded eXXpedition, a series of all-female sailing voyages around the world to bring global awareness to three “unseens”: women in science; pollution in our oceans and bodies, and the rises of diseases – especially in young women. Over two years and 38,000 nautical miles later, Clean Waves spoke to Emily to learn more about what she and her crew of 300 women discovered about the relationship between plastics and female health.

TELL US ABOUT SOME OF THE HEALTH-RELATED WORK YOU DID DURING THE ALL-WOMAN EXXPEDITION RESEARCH VOYAGE IN THE PACIFIC.

Some of our research on the ship involved collecting plastic off the surface of the ocean in a very careful way to make sure it doesn’t get contaminated. Those samples are now in the lab, and the goal is to find out whether chemicals are sticking to plastic in the marine environment. We know that it does under controlled conditions, but we want to know if marine plastic has these chemicals on it – and if so, do those chemicals get transferred into the food chain? We need to answer those two questions, but it’s going to be hard. Almost everyone on the planet has various chemicals inside our bodies, so figuring out where they came from is extremely difficult.

YOU TESTED ACTUALLY TESTED YOURSELF A FEW YEARS BACK, WHAT DID YOU FIND?

I did a test where we chose 35 chemicals that are all banned because they’re toxic – they’re either carcinogens or they’re endocrine disruptors. It turned out that of the 35, I had 29 of them inside me. This completely horrified me – and that was really the seed for starting eXXpedition. These chemicals can affect pregnancy and women can pass them on when breastfeeding, so it really is a women-centered issue.

HOW CAN PEOPLE AVOID THESE CHEMICALS? DO YOU AVOID FISH, FOR EXAMPLE?

Obviously a vegan diet is one of the best things you can do for yourself and the planet, but I’ve found that when you’re in very remote parts of the world, people do depend on fish. It’s good to eat local – even if that means fish that you pull over the side of your boat. I do eat fish when I catch it myself, and I’ve checked what’s inside its stomach. For me, it’s about eating fresh and local and unprocessed – things that haven’t been shipped a long way, wrapped in plastic and so on.

WHAT ABOUT AROUND THE HOUSE? DID YOUR TEST INSPIRE ANY CHANGES?

I’m really conscious of cleaning products, because they have so many of these chemicals in them. Also shampoo, beauty products, moisturizers – products with plastic microbeads. It’s good to be on the lookout for any non-natural ingredients. In terms of furnishings, we recently had to get some blinds so I was very careful to look for something that wasn’t coated in flame-retardant chemicals. Clothing-wise, I’m a massive fan of merino wool, bamboo and cotton.

YOU TRAVELLED TO THE MALDIVES WITH PARLEY – WHAT WERE SOME OF YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF THE ISLANDS?

I think what struck me in the Maldives and when we’re out on our voyages is that islands are essentially natural nets for debris. I’m a strong advocate of stopping plastic at source, but once it’s in the ocean, the shorelines are the best place to collect it. All this plastic we see out on the ocean becomes condensed in a way that we can pick it up, then the tide comes in the next day and there’s more, and more. That’s why I think the Maldives are really interesting – there are over a thousand islands and they span all the way down through a part of the Indian Ocean, and act as a giant net. That for me is one of the really key parts of the story.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE MARINE CREATURE?

When I was seven it would have been a seahorse – no brainer! They were all over my bedroom walls. Nowadays, hmm, you can’t really beat a manta ray. I still don’t really understand how they can stay stationary in a seven-knot current, and you’re alongside them struggling to keep level. They’re so graceful and effortlessly amazing.

Visit Parley for more on Emily’s voyage across the North Pacific Gyre and learn more about her work on eXXpedition.

Chris HatherillSeptember 9, 2021