A PILOT STUDY by the San Francisco Estuary Institute captures plastic particles in the Bay that are 10 times smaller than measured before, the width of a human hair.

These smaller microplastics may account for the vast majority of those present in the water. The study could inform broader research on plastics and human health, coastal ecosystems and the ability of the sea to trap carbon from the earth’s atmosphere.

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Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.