Growing Knowledge of Plastic Pollution, Plastic Ocean Project - Bonnie Monteleone
About Bonnie Monteleone
Bonnie Monteleone is a researcher, environmental science-educator, film maker and artist. As a researcher, Bonnie has collected marine plastic on a global scale. She collaborated with Charles Moore, who is credited in 1997, with the discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Bonnie is affiliated with the Environmental Studies Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington where she works as an Adjunct Instructor of Plastic Marine Debris Field Studies. She also serves as an advisor for students conducting research on marine plastic. Additionally, Bonnie is an artist who uses the plastic she’s collects to create visual stories about her research.
Ocean Plastic Pollution, Gyres, and Turning Science into Action
Bonnie Monteleone grew up in Elmira, New York—far from the ocean—but seeing it for the first time at age five left a lasting impression. Her path into ocean conservation wasn’t linear. With a background in journalism and art, she initially set out to tell other people’s stories. That changed when she learned about the work of Charles Moore and joined an expedition across the North Pacific Gyre. There, she witnessed firsthand the scale of plastic pollution—leading to further research with the 5 Gyres Institute, which estimated 2.2 trillion plastic particles floating on the ocean’s surface.
This work helped shape her role as both a research scientist and educator, including contributions to the documentary A Plastic Ocean.
Bonnie explains that ocean gyres—large systems of circulating currents—naturally collect debris. There are five major gyres: North and South Pacific, North and South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean. These are not solid patches of trash but vast, shifting areas where plastic accumulates, making cleanup complex and challenging.
To communicate the urgency of the issue, Bonnie turns to art. One powerful example is a sea turtle sculpture made entirely from plastic collected on North Carolina beaches, now displayed at the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center. Pieces like flip-flops, straws, and goggles come together to tell a story science alone often cannot.
She founded the Plastic Ocean Project to further education and action. Today, plastic pollution is recognized by the United Nations as one of the most pressing environmental challenges, with microplastics found not only in marine life but also in human bodies.
Bonnie believes solutions will come from collective effort—scientists, artists, communities, and everyday individuals. Her advice is practical: reduce plastic use, support local businesses, and get involved with organizations working to protect waterways.
For students and future changemakers, her message is clear: the scale of the problem means there is opportunity—opportunity to do meaningful work and be part of the solution.
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00:00:00 Pam Ferris-Olson Today on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series on womenmindthewater.com. I am speaking with Bonnie Monteleone. Bonnie is the cofounder of the Plastic Ocean Project, a nonprofit seeking science based solutions to the global plastic pollution price. The Plastic Ocean Project empowers people to make choices that improve the health of humans and the environment.
Bonnie has collected marine plastic from sites across the globe and mentors students to conduct their own projects. Bonnie is also an accomplished artist. She uses marine plastic to create powerful stories about how widespread plastics are and their impacts on the world.
The Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast on womenmindthewater.com engages artists and conversations about their work and explores their connection with the ocean. Through their stories, Women Mind the Water hopes to inspire and encourage action to protect the ocean and her creatures.
I'm speaking with Bonnie Monteleone, co-founder of the Plastic Ocean Project. In addition to that role, Bonnie is a researcher, environmental science educator, filmmaker, and artist. As a researcher, Bonnie has collected marine plastic on a global scale. She collaborated with Charles Moore who was credited in 1997 with the discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage patch. Bonnie is affiliated with the Environmental Studies Department at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, where she works as an adjunct instructor of Plastic Marine Debris Field Studies. She also serves as an advisor for students conducting research on marine plastic. Additionally, Bonnie is an artist who uses the plastic she's collected to create visual stories about her research.
Welcome, Bonnie. You are a busy lady. Clearly, you are passionate about understanding marine plastic and sharing that knowledge with others. I'm looking forward to hearing more about you, your work and solutions to the plastic prices in a year filled with stories about global warming and declining biodiversity. News involving solutions is most welcome.
00:02:25 Pam Ferris-Olson Before we take a dive into the subject of marine plastic, tell us a little bit about yourself. Where did you grow up and how important was the ocean to you as a child?
00:02:37 Bonnie Monteleone Ohh Pam, thank you so much for having me and I'm delighted to share this story. So I actually come from landlocked Elmira, NY. It wouldn't be until I was about five years old that I would see the ocean for the very first time and it left an indelible imprint on my brain. You know, my mother had these dishes that had oceans on them, with people on beaches and fancy umbrellas. And I didn't know what that was about, but it looked like a lot of fun. So when my dad took me to the New Jersey shore to see the ocean for the first time, it was then that I recognize what those plates and dishes were about and just how vast and beautiful and even smaller I felt. And I never forgot that moment and that moment carried on through my entire life.
00:03:25 Pamela Ferris-Olson Lovely. So when did you become aware that plastic might be a problem?
00:03:31 Bonnie Monteleone Well, it's not a straight line, Pam. I started actually as an undergraduate in journalism and art. And then I decided I would go back to school to get my master’s to be a scientific writer. So my initial intention was really to write about other people’s research, not create my own. In one of the courses that I was taking, I learned about Charlie Moore and the work that he had done. A publication in 1999 told the story about how plastic is accumulating thousands of miles away from land, and you know it was one of those things that got in my craw. I just couldn't let it go. I wanted to know more.
It was through my master’s program that I was able to meet up with Charles Moore and travel across the North Pacific Gyre on a 50-ft catamaran, 30 days at sea.
And I got to actually witness the garbage patch with my own eyes. And that just led to more research in the North Atlantic asking the question: if plastic is accumulating in the North Pacific isn't it happening in the North Atlantic? And then there was this surge of people all asking the same question about plastic in the ocean. I got to work with Five Gyres Institute, where they were sampling all five gyres, looking at plastics, and then trying to quantify just how much is out there and their numbers came to trillion pieces of plastic particles and even a large piece of plastics floating on the ocean surface globally. In 2012, I worked with former members of the BBC producing the film A Plastic Ocean. So I went to the South Pacific and I conducted research there.
00:05:20 Bonnie Monteleone Well, and that that's one place that people can find more about the work that I do. So that was the hook. It was the hook that started with learning about Charlie Moore, and it's now turned me into a research scientist as well as an educator.
00:05:37 Pamela Ferris-Olson
Well, some of my listeners may remember that I have covered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch a while back with Pam Longobardi, who's a conceptual artist based at Georgia State University. Pam’s Drifters Project tells the story of plastic that she's collected all around the world and how the forces of nature affect the plastic and how plastic is affected by the marine world. But for our audience, who may not be familiar with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, I'd appreciate it if you describe what it is and what we'd see if we were to travel there with you.
00:06:18 Bonnie Monteleone You know Pam, I'm really glad you're asking this question, because the gyre circulation systems caused some confusion, so some people think that if there wasn't plastic, there wouldn't be a gyre there, but it's actually a natural occurring circulation system that happens in our ocean. So it's really one ocean. And just like our blood has to move around our body, if it gets stagnant anywhere, it causes problems. It's the same way with the ocean. So there are ocean currents that travel along the continental and in certain regions those currents create like a Whirlpool. I liken it to like when you were a kid, did you ever get into a round swimming pool and everyone run in a circle to create a current?
00:07:04 Pamela Ferris-Olson That sounds like fun.
00:07:07 Bonnie Montelone So with that current, you know, you're doing it because you're moving the water in one direction. And if you were to throw leaves on the top of that pool, those leaves would migrate to the center, where there's the least amount of energy. Right. So that's the same thing that's happening with these gyres. as these currents travel around the continental shelf. They're creating somewhat of a Whirlpool, and the water that's in the middle has less weather and less current. So therefore the plastic can migrate to the middle of these circulation systems, and there are essentially five of them. So there's one in the North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, S Atlantic and Indian Ocean. So when we talk about these circulation systems, this is a really good place for us to go, look for plastics, because there's no people there. So if there is indeed a problem, it's a great place to look. What is the least amount of people that we can have to assess it and quantify it and then figure out how to fix this problem.
00:08:13 Pamela Ferris-Olson That's a wonderful description. I would like to ask. I was under the impression that while the gyre is a circular area of water that the garbage patch itself is not in a small pool but actually stretched over an area, am I correct?
00:08:32 Bonnie Montelone Yes, and that's another very good point. You know, when people talk about, “let's just get out there with nets and scoop the surface of the ocean and clean up the gyres”. When we talk about the North Pacific, it's actually 10 million nautical square miles. You couldn't possibly skim it in the length of time that would be ending up out there, right? So it would be rather futile. So this and the other really important point is that it does accumulate in pockets, right. So it can in certain conditions accumulate with this convergence. So this cold water and warm water create almost like a trough where the plastic will accumulate so it's not as pretty as say you know, one little spot or in certain areas. It just really depends a lot on current and weather and that's what's driving a lot of why we're finding plastics in certain locations.
00:09:29 Pamela Ferris-Olson How did you decide where to stop?
00:09:32 Bonnie Montelone First of all, it was this class that I was learning about the problem and then it caused me to explore more. So I just was fortunate enough to work in a science building. I worked in the chemistry department at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and I had access to all these different scientists that I would need to speak with in order to learn about all the different properties of, say currents. So I would sit down with an oceanographer to learn about what is plastic, what is it made out of? I would work with a polymer chemist to learn about the chemistry of plastics and the way those chemicals leach out, as well as absorb into plastics. I had to work with an organic chemist to learn about the different fish species and who's impacted by this plastics. I had to work with marine biologists. It was a hub of information for me to really, garner just what was happening with this plastic and then being able to show what I learned through my research through art. So this was the way it went from science into the art field.
00:10:39 Pamela Ferris-Olson What is your secret to combating the feeling of being overwhelmed by the immensity of the issue?
00:10:46 Bonnie Montelone Yeah, it is. It is very difficult because every day we're learning more and more, right. So recycling is not perfect and in fact it needs a lot of work. There's not one silver bullet and there's not going to be. My hope comes from the people I get to work with, the fact that I get to teach a course that I design through this university. I get students coming in with the same wide eyes as I had when I wanted to learn about this issue. And I get to teach them all the things that I've learned that it took me many years to learn. I can teach them pretty much in class so that they can then go out and start doing research of their own. We get them collaborating with other scientists. We get them working out in the field and we also get them working with industry. And that's my hope, Pam; that we are creating a movement through this university and through this nonprofit that I started in order to galvanized the need; to stop the whole of this plastic problem.
00:11:53 Pamela Ferris-Olson So let's switch gears for just a minute and let's talk about your artistic work. Be a virtual docent and describe a piece that you've created and the message imparts to the viewer.
00:12:06 Bonnie Montelone The sea turtle that I created out of beach plastics. Here in North Carolina we have beachcombers that actually are looking for the turtle tracks. Every morning they're out there looking for the turtles, where their nesting site is, putting some kind of protection around that nesting site. But they're also picking up trash. And so there was one, one woman in particular, Ginger Taylor, who was keeping it and then quantifying it. She approached me, and she says: “Bonnie, I've got all this plastic that I collected from the beach, you know, trying to protect the turtles. Would you help me design a sea turtle out of it?”
So we did design this turtle. It's absolutely beautiful. It now hangs in the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Hospital here in North Carolina. And because we have all the statistics about the quantities of plastic that she was able to pick up just from her individual efforts.
So the very bottom of the carapace is actually made from flip flops that we tied together with straws. The very straws that we picked up on the beach, so it really does look like the bottom of a turtle. As well as the flippers. They are actually flippers that people brought to the beach and lost. And then the eyes are actually made out of goggles. So it's just really, a really awesome piece that has been hanging there. I think for about 8 years now.
00:13:36 Pamela Ferris-Olson So let's talk about the organization that you co-founded, the Plastic Ocean Project. It's been a decade now. How has the organization grown? And what do you think keeps it going?
00:13:51 Bonnie Montelone It's growing because there's such an interest in this topic and there should be. According to the UN environmental sciences, they say it's second to climate change. That's how serious this problem is. It's ending up in all life, not just marine life, but even in humans, right. So we're now finding out it has been found in human placenta as well as blood streams. A new paper just came out that said they're actually finding plastic particles in blue whales. It's really integrating into life itself and because of that, people want answers like, you know, we can study this problem from every aspect, but what do we do about it? And that's where people need to be able to turn to work like I do, because there's very little that our government is taking on on that front.
So as you may know, the recycling is unfortunately abysmal. I think we're down to 5%. We're going in the wrong direction. 5% of plastics are now being recycled in the United States. The problem is that there's no place for it to go. It does not fit within the realm of the existence of this planet. There is no bacteria that can digest it in a length of time, like a banana peel or paper or cardboard. And so it really doesn't function in the way. If we can really get our heads around, that every time we take that piece of plastic, we really looked at it and said, yeah, this is going to be here for at least 100 years. But some of it most likely closer to 1000.
00:15:32 Pamela Ferris-Olson Unfortunately, there are not many solutions, so we go into the market and we don't want to buy our clothes soap in a plastic bottle. But there is only one alternative on the shelf in a cardboard box, and it's got phosphorus in it. And I don't want that either. So sometimes you have the awareness, but the option isn't there.
00:15:59 Bonnie Montelone I'd love that you use that example. Can we talk about that one a little bit because that's such a really great example, you know, and you're mostly paying for water, right? You're paying for a plastic bottle and water and the soap that you get is not going to last as long as say a bar of soap.What's the work around for that? You know, every community has soap makers. And so this idea of how do we move away from plastic really is about how do we buy local? Where do we find the artisans that are actually making healthy soap without those harmful chemicals? Right, without all those perfumes and unfortunately other nasty chemicals that you're getting when you buy a lot of these commercial soap. We can start solving some of these issues by buying local and that means going to your local farmers market,. Yes, it's one more step. We have to, you know, figure out where these people are and how do we support them and making it time in our schedules in order to buy from local vendors. But in the long run, we're going to use a whole lot less plastic and we'll get a lot healthier things, whether it's some stuff that we eat or stuff that we put on our bodies.
00:17:11 Pamela Ferris-Olson Well, all we can do is keep trying this and, you know, making noise when you have the energy.
Not everyone can be as creative or energetic as you are, in their desire to address marine pollution. So what advice can you offer to individuals who would like to make a difference?
00:17:31 Bonnie Montelone Supporting your local nonprofit. Not every location has some group that's out there doing cleanups. Volunteer your time, help support them financially so that they can grow and do more work on combating the plastic issues in their community.
You know large nonprofits are important too, their money will go somewhere but that's not going to be as much support to your community. So I would say that's local is a really great place to start. Look in your community who's working on this issue. And there are plenty. We are very fortunate, Pam, because not only do we [Plastic Ocean Project] do cleanups, we actually have a program called Trees for Trash. For every 25 lbs of trash we pick up, we're planting trees. We’re removing what doesn't belong and putting back what does.
We also have a full service research. There are other universities who don't have the instrumentation that we have relying on us to run their samples for them. We now have two contracts with for profit businesses. They want to know how much plastic waste they're generating when they recycle their plastic. So they want to look at the water before it goes to wash the plastics and then looks at it after. Are plastics sluffing off in the cleaning process? These are really important questions, you know, and things that no one would ever think of.
Except for the fact that there is pressure from society saying we want this solved and where there's a problem there is money to support those efforts. That's where I see hope. We've got to support businesses that are trying to do the right thing, but also people, nonprofits that are actually working on the problem as well.
00:19:19 Pamela Ferris-Olson So as someone who works with students, what advice do you have for them?
00:19:24 Bonnie Montelone What I tell the young people is, especially when I have my classes, how many of you are hopeful for the future, you know, put your hand up. There are no hands, there are no hands, Pam. There's no one. They realize we are in trouble. And then I'll say, well, when there's a lot of problems, that means there's a lot of opportunity for you to do what you love and get paid.
00:19:48 Pamela Ferris-Olson I'm really grateful that you were here on the podcast and I'd like to remind my listeners that I've been speaking with Bonnie Monteleone. An educator, researcher and artist focused on marine plastic. Bonnie is also the co-founder of the Plastic Ocean Project, a non-profit seeking science based solutions to the global plastic pollution crisis. Bonnie Monteleone is the latest guest on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast. The series can be viewed on womenmindwater.com, Museum on Main Street, and YouTube and audio. An audio only version of this podcast is available on womenandthewater.com, on iTunes and Spotify.
Wo(man) Mind the Water is grateful to Jayne Rice for the use of her song, Women of Water. All rights for the Wo(men) Mind the Water name and logo belong to Pam Ferris-Olson. This is Pam Ferris-Olson.
