Plastic Podcast Episode 6: Turtles and Straws
In this episode, host Clark Marchese interviews sea turtle biologist Dr. Christine Figgener. In 2015, Dr. Figgener filmed a viral video where she pulled a straw out of a turtle’s nose. This video prompted an anti-straw movement and solidified turtles as the symbol of plastic’s impact on marine life. The conversation allows an opportunity to reflect on the video and the movement almost ten years later. The two also candidly discuss the broader implications of plastic waste on marine life, the intersection of science and activism, and the urgent need for global environmental change.
Episode Guest: Dr. Christine Figgener
Browse her publications on Research Gate .
Follow Dr. Figginer on Instagram
Pre-order My Life with Sea Turtles by Christine Figgener
Find the viral video of the turtle and the straw on YouTube
More information about the episode and the Plastic Podcast
Episode Transcript and more information on the Pine Forest Media Website
Follow Pine Forest Media on Instagram @pineforestmedia
Hosted, produced, written, and edited by Clark Marchese
Cover art and PFM logo by Laurel Wong.
Theme music by Tadeo Cabellos
Transcript:
[00:00:10.090] - Clark
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Plastic Podcast, the show that tells the story of the past, the present, and the future of our relationship with plastic. And today, we are serving science and turtles. Okay, so yes, this is a show about plastic. It's in the name. I came up with the name. I get it. Today, we are going to be talking a lot about sea turtles. Now, if you're upset about that, take a deep breath, chill out a bit. You're going to be fine. You're going to like it, and you'll even get some fun facts. In fact, you'll get a couple along the way. But if you stick around to the end of the credits, you will get an extra special one. Now, the show today is not all about sea turtles. There is a link. Turtles are perhaps the largest animal symbol of the anti-plastic movement. It all started around 10 years ago in 2015, when a viral video found its way to the Internet of a scientist pulling a plastic straw out of a turtle's nose. Maybe you've seen it. After this video came out, restaurants all over the world stopped giving out straws or switched them out for those paper versions that used to get all soggy, but they have gotten better over time.
[00:01:28.600] - Clark
Now, the scientist who took this video is a self-proclaimed sea turtle biologist named . And guess what? You won't believe it. That is our guest for today's episode. does research on turtle migrations and their trophic morphology. Breaking that down. Trophic means like food or eating, and morphology refers to the shape, the size, or the design of physical features. And we'll also throw in the word optimal in there, which means the best for fitness or survival. So trophic morphology is how our bodies are designed to help us eat. Boom. Science communication, baby. An example of my trophic morphology would be how I need a big enough mouth to fit 18 donut holes inside, which is most optimal for my survival of any given day. Now, Dr. Figuner is currently living and researching in Costa Rica, and she was kind enough to hop on a phone call with me and talk all about her work. We spoke about how her passion for sea turtles evolved and the threats that modern plastics pose to the ancient creatures. We talked about the video she published and the response it generated, now able to reflect on the movement 10 years later.
[00:02:37.660] - Clark
We also talked about how to navigate both spaces of science and activism together. I hope you enjoy our chat, and I'll see you on the other side of the East Australian Current. All right, welcome. Thank Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today. I'm very excited to have you. Can you please introduce yourself?
[00:03:06.230] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Well, yeah. Thank you, first of all, for having me on this show. I'm , and I'm a Marine conservation biologist by trade, and my focus are sea turtles.
[00:03:17.910] - Clark
Okay, amazing. I talk to a lot of scientists, and I'm always curious to ask when their interest began. I guess in your case, sea turtles, when did you start to become interested in sea turtles and decided you wanted to study them?
[00:03:30.530] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Yeah. So my journey into marine biology actually started, at least the passion started as a child. I went on vacation with my parents, mainly to the ocean because my parents are more of ocean people than mountain people, I guess. It just instilled in me in this curiosity for the underwater world and what's going on there. When I got my first diving goggles, that pretty much opened up a whole new world. Friends say that even kindergarten, already said that I would become an ocean explorer, just like Jacques Cousteau and Hans Haas, which were big back then, having incredible underwater documentaries that I could see in the television as well. I knew that at one point, of course, I needed to study biology to become what I call an underwater explorer. I also decided to do my internship, which was mandatory I've already back then, in a zoological setting in an aquarium, actually, where I could get first-hand experiences with scientists, researching marine life. I think that was very, very helpful, first of all, to gain of what scientific was could look like. Also, I think giving you a realistic idea of what that work, especially if your work, would entail.
[00:04:53.490] - Clark
Oh, my gosh. I would love to do an internship at an aquarium if I had literally any skills that they would find useful. I think, in fact, I know I'm too old to do any of those entry-level programs for young people. I checked. But if you are in high school listening to this, now is your time to get in touch with your local aquarium because they might have something for you.
[00:05:14.430] - Dr. Christine Figgener
And then the other thing was that while I was working there, a lot of the biology students I saw struggling with the English language because the scientific language nowadays is English. And of course, I'm German, so I'm not a native speaker. So I did not want to I'll be bogged down by the fact that I wouldn't be able to speak English well enough. And I actually did an exchange here in the US to brush up on my English.
[00:05:40.750] - Clark
Okay. A huge shout out to anyone who has ever studied or done anything at all in a language that is not their first. That is not easy.
[00:05:47.840] - Dr. Christine Figgener
And so when I started to develop my passion, sea turtles were actually not even on my radar, I have to admit. It was back then, Humpback Whales. Humpback Whales really fascinated me because of the song Family is quite musical, so there was always music around just thinking about that another species other than humans might have something like such as a song that is not just stationary, but that develops over the course of their life, that adds, pides, depending on the experiences and all of that. I actually set out studying biology to study Humboldt whales. I did my master's in that. I went to Costa Rica for an internship to just get some field experience, and I ended up in a leatherback turtle project here in Costa Rica. And that was really where my sea turtle journey truly started. And while I was in this project, of course, you are getting the whole spiel about sea turtles in general, sea turtle biology. Of course, you are also realizing that this animal that has been on this planet for such a long time, all of a sudden is on the brink of extinction, and it's all thanks to us humans.
[00:06:59.210] - Dr. Christine Figgener
It gives you a big feeling of guilt because, of course, I am a representative of the human species. It made me incredibly sad thinking that in my lifetime, there's a very real chance that those animals will not be here anymore. I mean, leatherbacks have been around, estimatedly, for about a 100 or 10 to 90 million years. So they literally have survived the extinction of the dinosaurs. I think this is really what started it all. And also my university that, at least when I asked for it, gave me the opportunity to do my master thesis in Costa Rica with leatherbacks. And then I just moved to Costa Rica full-time, and I'm still here. In between, I did Also a PhD. After I worked a little bit here, I actually went back to school and did a thesis on the migration patterns of all of the riddlist and the diet theory preferences. Now I'm .
[00:08:00.000] - Clark
Wow, that is quite a journey. I can hear the passion in your voice just when you talk about these animals and you tell that story. I didn't think about how long sea turtles have been on this planet as opposed to how recent the threats that they're facing have been around. I guess the reason that they might not make it through this second mass extinction in their species's lifetime is because of us humans. But let's get into why that might happen. Maybe we'll start with a video that you posted in 2015 that went viral on the internet. You probably know the one I'm talking about. Our listeners, if you haven't seen it, you can find it in the episode description. But can you tell us a little bit about that video?
[00:08:36.240] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Yeah. The video you're speaking of is very likely the video of the turtle that had a straw stuck in its nose. It was filmed during my data collection, actually, for my PhD thesis dissertation in 2015 when we were out sampling on a boat. During that time, because, of course, field work is always a little bit costly, a researcher actually piggybacked onto my research because he was interested in the critters that are living on sea turtles. We had been collecting for him pretty much everything that on turtles, let it be some crustaceas, a little crabs or little sanguilos. But yeah, so that particular day, he was on the boat as well. After I was done with my data collection, he said, I think she has something funny in the nose. It looks like a big barnacle. Since I wasn't doing anything anymore. I just grabbed my camera and said, Oh, that's funny. That's an uncomfortable place to have a barnacle stuck. So I started filming, and when he started pulling, it was very slowly materializing that it had a strange shape for a barnacle. It became longer and longer. After a while, I could see black stripes on it, and we were really not sure what it was.
[00:09:53.480] - Dr. Christine Figgener
So we cut up a piece. One of my local systems actually bid on it and said, That's plastic. From that point on, it was pretty clear. I mean, the shape already looked like it, but it was a straw. Well, we removed it. The turtle was probably not so pleased about it in that minute, but very happy when he swam away. After that, I uploaded it to YouTube, and it just went crazy. I mean, it was never the intention. It was never what we thought would happen. It was just we were so shocked about it. I think we all felt incredibly guilty as well, again, because straws are human made.
[00:10:28.480] - Clark
Yeah. So as I said, for anyone who hasn't seen it, you can find a link in the episode description, but it's quite maybe heart-wrenching is a good word for the video. And it was massively impactful. I think after this came out, both the sea turtle and the straw both became symbols in their own right. Sea turtle representing almost all of the vulnerabilities that the ocean is facing, and straws representing all of the problems with plastic pollution. I guess it speaks to the power of the media because not all of us live near the ocean or interact with sea turtles all that often, if ever, And so, yeah, when we published it, it became this internet sensation.
[00:11:05.730] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Everybody suffered with the turtle, and it definitely made sea turtles the poster child, I would say, for the impact that plastic has as, at least in the marine environment. And I think this is rightfully so. Of course, there's so many other animals, including massive whales, that are impacted by plastic, by eating plastic or ingesting plastic. But I think sea turtles turdles were one of the first species that have been found to have ingested plastic. In fact, the lutterback turtle has been the very first species ever found to have had plastic in their stomach. Those records date back to the '60s and '70s. They actually first published. Scientific paper on it was from the '80s, but it was also leaning on data that was collected before from necropses. Pretty much with the introduction of plastic right after the Second World War, when it became really big.
[00:12:04.550] - Clark
Okay, so then it's almost 80 years ago, at least, since these species started interacting with plastic. I'm wondering, obviously, no sea turtle will enjoy having a straw in its nose or plastic in its stomach. But can we break down specifically all the harms that plastic is posing to species like sea turtles?
[00:12:20.900] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Nowadays, we estimate that about 80% of all the sea turtles swimming in our oceans do have plastic in their stomachs. So that's a lot. It doesn't always lead to the immediate death of a turtle. It can lead to, for example, perforations, to any wounds within the digestive tract, but it can also completely block it. So that means the turtle can starve while it has a stomach full of plastic because it can't eat anymore. But the problem with plastic, especially plastic that spins for a long time in the ocean, is that it almost works like a sponge. It attracts certain toxins to its surface. And so So there have been studies that show that just the consumption of about 14 pieces of plastic already reduces the mortality or the probability of what raises the probability of mortality by 50 %. And we're only scratching the surface because it's really difficult for a species that is so long lived of how consumption really affects the entire life cycle. So, yeah, that's the problem. And that's not even including the entanglement of plastic, right? Because if you think about industrial fishing and all of that, what are those nets made of?
[00:13:32.630] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Of course, it's plastic.
[00:13:34.460] - Clark
Would you say then that plastic is the main threat to turtles at the moment?
[00:13:38.240] - Dr. Christine Figgener
I get this question so many times, and I find it really, really difficult and also wrong to do a ranking of threats because unfortunately, plastic is a threat that sea turtles are facing, one of the major threats, I would say as well. But if it's the most dangerous part of their lives, I don't think so. It depends maybe the population, because there is so much other stuff going on in our oceans. There's industrial fisheries that kill hundreds of thousands of sea turtles. But then we also have the climate crisis. We have temperatures that are rising within the water. We have the ocean level that is rising, which is destroying or literally eroding our nesting beaches, temperatures globally that are rising, and also the sand temperatures. Because the biological sex of the sea turtle It depends on the temperature during the incubation of the eggs in the sand. We already have a problem with feminizations of populations. So plastic is one of those problems, and they're all somehow interconnected. Like I said already, what are fishing nets made of? It's plastic. And why do we have the climate crisis? Because we are using way too many fossil fuels.
[00:14:52.620] - Dr. Christine Figgener
And what is plastic made of? It's petroleum. So this is all this vicious cycle. They're all interconnected. And I I think the common denominator is us humans. I think that we should have very clear it's humans and it's our lifestyle. So the way how we eat, the way how we move about in the world and how we consume, that's the sad truth.
[00:15:15.190] - Clark
Yeah, these are all so interwoven, I guess, when we really look at it. I like the idea that it's not the best approach, perhaps, to try and rank them. We know that they're all issues on their own, and perhaps even trying to rank them or identify the worst one could take away our focus from the They're all things we need to be working on in tandem. But despite the reality of the interconnectedness of all of these threats, turtles and straws have gotten quite a lot of air time comparatively. Do you have any thoughts on why these two became such large symbols?
[00:15:46.430] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Well, I can only guess, right? So this is nothing hard to stay in fact here. I mean, I think the video definitely had something to do. It's because, well, sea turtles are charismatic megaphona, which means we do emotionally relates to sea turtles laugh. We think they're cute, maybe not cuddly because they're not fluffy, but they definitely totally have sympathies from our sides, just as like panda bears and cute animals, baby animals, especially. I think seeing such an animal in such a horrible position as in that video, and it's a close up of the face and you could see the suffering, I think it does something to us emotionally. And after that, even though plastic straws are definitely not the most or the biggest part of the plastic, not even the single-use plastic, but it symbolizes the problem with single-use, right?
[00:16:42.400] - Clark
For anyone who didn't listen to our episode on the history of plastic. You can go back and find it. But there we learned that plastic products in the early stages were really meant to last a long time and for people to use them again and again. The concept of single use didn't come around until much after plastic was invented. At some point, we started using plastic for just things that we don't need. I think that the straw represents both single-use plastic and unnecessary single-use plastic. I know some people do need to use straws, but most of us really don't. But as someone who's out there in the field year after year, have you seen any change in the last decade or so since this movement started? I know straws alone have got to be less than one-tenth of a % of plastic waste, less than that even. But perhaps it is the greatest example of success we do have for collective action So even if that's the only effect it has had, maybe that's worth something in its own. But I'm curious, in the field, have you noticed any impacts of this movement 10 years later?
[00:17:39.170] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Yeah. Well, I don't want to be totally negative about it, honestly, I think because it opens ended up the discussion. If you think about it, 10 years back, nobody was even talking about plastic. Nobody cared about plastic. And now we're actually at a point, I think every child knows that plastic is bad for the environment, especially for turtles. We're having more and more research that even show that plastic is really, really not healthy for us humans neither. If you look around and if you see all the companies and all the countries, especially the policies that now exist to phase out straws, they usually didn't come as only phasing out straws. Most of them actually started phasing out other single-use plastics at the same time. If you look at the EU, for example, or even here in Costa Rica, the plastic was It's just the starter. Then people were like, You know what? If we start with straws, we can also talk about styrofoam and other things. So it didn't exist in a vacuum. It came with a lot of other changes. Now we're even discussing a UN Treaty. And it actually doesn't only talk about the management of the waste, but it also talks about how can we reduce the production of plastic.
[00:18:53.830] - Dr. Christine Figgener
I want to make that very clear. So we will not recycle our way out of this crisis. And we do have to get the producers responsible. I always say, because when I talk to them and they say, Oh, it's not as easy and we don't have any comparable materials, I'm always thinking and sometimes saying, We're almost flying to Mars to colonize Mars and invent new technologies almost every day for that. Really, you want to tell me that we're not able to invent something that could replace plastic but is a lot healthier?
[00:19:27.330] - Clark
Yeah, that's a good point, actually. I mean, There are people out there trying to find solutions for alternative plastics. We haven't quite cracked the code on them yet to make them the ideal solution. But at the same time, there's people preparing to go to Mars right now for funsies. It's a question of priorities. Yeah, it's a question of priorities. One thing I want to explore on this podcast is the intersection of scientific research and activism. I know that you've existed in both spaces for a while, and I'm wondering if you can speak to your experience about taking on these two roles at once. You also wrote an article, and there's something I want to ask about. It was titled What I Learned: Pulling a straw out of a turtle's nose. There's a quote, you said, Talking to non-scientists is uncomfortable and effective. Can you explain what you mean by that?
[00:20:15.290] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Yeah. So maybe first, your first question. I think I have now existed for longer in this space than maybe when I wrote this article or even when I started out. I have to say I was very slow in leaving my Ivory Tower as a scientist or even, I would say more my jungle here because I'm very isolated from the world, sometimes just doing my thing. And this video was the moment where I realized how powerful social media is for once. I I sit here in my little home in the jungle and literally publish things that I've read in I don't know how many countries by how many people that I can educate, that I can let people know of what their part could be in the whole story. I also realized that as a scientist, we do have a responsibility, I think, which I think the scientific community is slowly awakening to. I think it is not enough anymore that we are just the neutral bystanders that collect data and analyze the data and interpret the data. I think it's our responsibility to communicate to non-scientists because a lot of times the information comes from politicians who are not scientists and who twist and turn everything.
[00:21:33.290] - Dr. Christine Figgener
I think it's on us to really make sure that information is put out there that is understandable for everyone. It's just a different way of communicating. That is what makes me uncomfortable because a lot of times when you're trying to simplify a very complex topic, it introduces inaccuracies, which, of course, in science, you try to avoid, usually. You have to find a way of doing it and maybe keeping the inaccuracies to a limit or to a minimum and also being comfortable with being not as clear or maybe not as a scientific correct sometimes of how you say things. Because you're getting drilled when you write a scientific article. Every word has a definition almost. It is very much a matter of how many numbers after the comma are there and how you say certain things. All of those rules that don't apply or don't apply as much for the communication because there you're trying to be as clear as possible and as simple as it needs to be. I think it was actually Cal Sajan that said that if you can explain it to a child, then you do really understand it yourself, the topic, and then you know you're in the right way.
[00:22:49.670] - Dr. Christine Figgener
That's what I'm trying to do. I'm always calling myself an accidental storyteller because that's how I started out. This video is just pushed pushed me into that direction, and I could have not done it, I guess. Just let it be and keep on doing what I've been doing before. But it comes with a certain guilt as well because you feel like your subjects, your sea turtles, do not have a voice, right? So they just live their lives and populations are dwindling and you are watching it as a scientist. And again, you feel like you should be doing something, right? You should be somehow communicating this and giving the voice to the voiceless, your voice to the voiceless.
[00:23:34.090] - Clark
Well, I thank you for taking the opportunity to do that. And I know the sea turtles do as well. And it's interesting that those the scientific publications and then mass media are two entirely different skill sets. You've been doing it now for a long time, but I'm sure a lot of scientists navigate that in their own ways and in their own time. But it is necessary, and we appreciate it. Thank you for it. You wrote a book, a I'm going to try and pronounce it, Meine Reise mit den Meereschildkuchen. How did I do it? Okay. That's German for My Life with Sea turtles. That's available now, but in the event that you don't read German. I read that the English version was going to be released in May. Do you want to tell us anything about this book?
[00:24:22.050] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Yeah. My book, Meine Reise mit den Meereschildkuchen, actually translate literally to my journey with sea turtles, but it didn't sound as in English. It became my life with sea turtles. It's very dear to my heart because it is a book, of course, about sea turtles, but I didn't want to just package fun facts about sea turtles. Well, fun, maybe more or less fun, into a popular science book that's the genre that it belongs to, because I honestly don't like reading it very much most of the times because it can be still pretty dry. One of my big heroes, I'm not going to lie, is Dr. Jane Goodall. I absolutely loved her books as a child because she managed to disseminate information about chimpanzees, about the threat chimpanzees are facing in such an emotional and very well-written way that always intermingled with her own story as well. I took that as an example. I'm not saying it became the same. Dr. Jane Goodall writes, I mean, it's absolutely incredible. Writes very eloquent and very as well. But I tried to amalgate it a little bit. I pretty much tell my story a little bit about how I became a sea turtle biologist and intertwine it with the life cycle of a sea turtle and going through the different stages of how a sea turtle pretty much hatches, becomes adult and all of that.
[00:25:50.320] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Maybe also some insights into conservation and marine conservation, especially, because I have come to realize that a lot of people do not even know first thing about conservation work and the realities of it. Let it be the type of life you're living. If you're really completely dedicated to conservation, the constant struggles of also as a woman in conservation of working in a country that is maybe not your native country, of how you acquire funds and all of that, the neocolonistical ideas that conservation still has in a lot of parts of the world. So all of that, I try to I've pretty much put into this book. Some people describe it as like it's a mixture of autobiography, adventure, and a popular science book. I think that's a pretty good summary. I hope it will encourage young people, especially women, to maybe follow my footsteps. Of course, hope. That's, of course, the big, big, big bottom line that people just fall a little bit in love with sea turtles and think about the ways they themselves can make a difference and help to, yeah, guarantee a future for these animals on our planet.
[00:27:03.310] - Clark
Wow, you are really selling it. I do not read German, but I cannot wait until I can get my hands on this English copy. I will put a link in the description for people to pre-order. We are going to start wrapping up. We've heard a lot of them already, but I will ask, is there any one last fun fact you'd like to share with us about turtles, and if you have a favorite turtle?
[00:27:28.780] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Well, of course, my favorite turtle turtles are leatherbacks. I think they're like the unicorns, like the last unicorn. But some people don't even know what they look like. If I would ask them, Hey, draw me a leatherback, they would have no idea of how to do it. So maybe unicorns are even more known than leatherbacks than thinking of it. Fun fact about sea turtles. I think there's so many. I think fun is, for example, that they have some type of kidneys in their head. So you have to think about as an animal that lives mainly in a salty environment, you are consistently losing fresh water to your environment. You would shrival like a racine if you wouldn't have somehow a way of counterbalancing that, how you can pretty much acquire fresh water over and over again. And so sea turtles do that by having these kidney type glands in their head and modified tear ducts. And so they consistently filter salt, excess salt from their system and then excrete it over their eyes. So they're literally consistently crying, which you don't really see underwater. But when you see them, for example, on the beach nesting, it looks like they're constantly crying.
[00:28:34.390] - Dr. Christine Figgener
That has led to a lot of misinterpretation about like, Oh, the female is in so much pain. It's not. It's just literally an essential survival tool that you can live in the ocean as an animal that needs to have fresh water in their body, of course.
[00:28:50.320] - Clark
That's beautiful, actually, if not poetic. The next question is, what is your favorite part of your job?
[00:28:56.370] - Dr. Christine Figgener
I think what has always provided me the magic is that I get to work in a very incredible environment. I mean, you can't see it, but just looking out of my window, I'm literally looking at tropical rainforest. I can go into the beach. I get to see incredible night sky And of course, I can work with a wild animal very, very, very close up. I don't think there's a lot of species that permits you to be that close without having to sedate them or anything else. And you can just share those precious moments when the females, for example, come up to nest. I think that is very unique to working with sea turtles.
[00:29:36.530] - Clark
Okay. I hope anyone who has even the slightest interest in science was listening to that because this could be your life, people. That sounds pretty cool. Lastly, is there anything that we did not discuss today that you would like to share with the audience?
[00:29:50.440] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Yeah, I think just read something about sea turtles, get excited about something. Honestly, there's so many things in this world that are not going well. Just become part of the solution. Just don't be the innocent bystander that just doesn't care or is ignorant about certain things. I think that is important. We all can chip in. If everybody would give their two little pard of grains, I think we could make a huge difference.
[00:30:17.870] - Clark
All right. I think that is a wonderful note to end on. I want to thank you so much for your time and for teaching us about sea turtles and for sharing your work. Last, last, last question. Where can people find you? Where can people follow your work?
[00:30:29.550] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Yeah, you're Very welcome. If you would like to learn more about, you can always follow me on Instagram at Seed turtle biologist. That's my handle. Or also my website is seed turtlebiologist. Com. Pretty easy to remember, I think.
[00:30:44.050] - Clark
Okay, perfect. There will be lots of links in this episode description for everyone to check all of this stuff out. Thank you so much.
[00:30:51.260] - Dr. Christine Figgener
Thank you for having me. Have a good day.
[00:30:59.920] - Clark
All right, everyone. We made it through that East Australian current, and we are now approaching the Sydney Harbor to seek the help of a pelican friend. Now, back on topic. Turtles and straws might seem like a cliché on a podcast about plastic pollution And I might be more inclined to agree with that if turtles were actually in a better spot now because of it. I don't want to end this on a low note, but while there are more paper straws out there in the world, there's also more plastic in the ocean now than there was 10 years ago. And there's other things than just straws that can get stuck inside a turtle's nose. So I think it's important to remember the turtles in the straws, if only to remind ourselves that we are capable of making collective changes, and we can use this power we have and apply it to more than just the straws. And I think we are slowly. More and more, people are becoming aware about plastic waste and paying attention to plastic products around us and whether or not we actually need them. And I think that's the takeaway for today.
[00:32:05.930] - Clark
You've been listening to Plastic Podcast. You can find more information about this week's guest and links to their work in the episode description. Join us back here in one week's time when we're going to talk to Dr. Yvonne Shoshua, an expert in chemistry and museum studies, about her work preserving plastic artifacts of Great Cultural Significance, and how her work can inform environmental approaches to plastic pollution. The cover art for the show was done by Laurel Wong, and the music you're listening to was done by Tadeo Kubejos. I am your host, Clark Marchese, and this episode was produced, written, and engineered by me. If you loved it, I will not only see you here next week, but I would really appreciate a five-star rating across platforms and a review on Apple Podcasts. I think I'm going to start reading one review per week at the end of the episode, and we're only on episode 6, so chances are high that yours will be chosen. Plastic Podcast is a part of a larger network of sciencey podcasts called Pine Forest Media. You can find more information about them in the episode description or the website at pineforestpods.
[00:33:02.700] - Clark
Com and Instagram at pineforestmedia. We've got some exciting science podcasts coming out this year, and that review I was talking about really helps the entire network to grow. All right, thank you to all of you who have made it this far. And as promised, I have one last fun fact about turtles.
[00:33:30.580] - Dr. Christine Figgener
For those that are not familiar with sea turtles, we have seven worldwide, and the largest species is the leatherback turtle, which on average has a carapace length, like a shell length of about 1.50 meter. With head and tail, it's actually as tall as I am, so 1.70 meter about, but weighs close to half a ton or even more. It's an impressive animal. It also looks a little bit different than all the other sea turtle species does not have a hard shell, but it has actually a soft shell, hence the name leatherback. They have been around for millions of years, like the other sea turtles as well, but just a little bit longer.
