Seaside activist tracks waves

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2012/09/seaside_activist_tracks_waves.html

ECOLA STATE PARK -- Crescent Beach is a majestic place, bounded by thick 
forest and rocky headlands that jut from the sea, rounded and 
bird-covered to the south, sharp like sails to the north.

It's also, as Marc Ward has discovered, a "plastic sink," one of the 
spots along Oregon's coast where thousands upon thousands of plastic 
fragments spin out of the North Pacific Gyre and settle into 
high-tideline sands.

Ward, a 54-year-old Seaside native, splits his year dashing between 
protecting sea turtles in Costa Rica and tracking an increase of 
toxic-laden "microplastics" on Oregon beaches. Those two vocations are 
closely related, given the plastic found in the stomachs of sea turtles, 
seabirds and other ocean creatures.

Seaside activist tracks waves