EP 10: Plastic Pollution, Passion, and Service with Scientist & Cofounder of 5Gyres Marcus Eriksen

Joining us this week on Supersede, Marcus Erikson discusses the continual call of service in his life – eventually leading to his role as co-founder and scientist at 5 Gyres. Marcus and Madeleine discuss their approaches to activism against plastics pollution and science communication, and Madeline shares how Marcus’s mentorship shaped her science journey as well. 

Marcus shares a bit of his inspiring life journey, encouraging listeners to dive deeply into issues that call to them. From rafting the Mississippi, to making art reflecting on his time as a Marine, to leading expeditions across the world to learn more about plastic pollution, Marcus’s love for nature and commitment to the world has guided him throughout life. 

Rather than centering his work on himself though, Marcus continually demonstrates humility and a steadfast commitment to the collective betterment of the world. It is the collective of humanity that must change in order to change the world. With this, Marcus reminds listeners of the importance of making science and creativity accessible to all – work that he is doing through his role at Leap Labs. 

Activism is not a linear journey, but Marcus reminds listeners of the power in keeping the pressure and sticking with an issue. Change may not be immediate, but it will be worth it. 

To learn more about Marcus’s work visit 

https://www.leaplab.org/

https://www.5gyres.org/

Marcus Eriksen has led expeditions around the world to research plastic marine pollution, co-publishing the first global estimate and the discovery of plastic microbeads in the Great Lakes, which led to the federal Microbead-free Waters Act of 2015.  He and his wife Anna Cummins founded 5 Gyres with an 88-day journey from California to Hawaii on the Junk Raft, built from 15,000 plastic bottles. Earlier, Marcus had rafted the Mississippi River, writing about the river and his experience as a Marine in the 1991 Gulf War in the book, My River Home. His second book, Junk Raft: An ocean voyage and a rising tide of activism to fight plastic pollution recalls the rise of the plastic pollution movement, growing steadily today.

5Gyres' Socials
Instagram: @5Gyres

Seeding Sovereignty's Socials
Instagram/TikTok/Twitter/YouTube: @seedingsovereignty
Website: www.seedingsovereignty.org

Madeleine's Socials
Instagram/TikTok: @madeleinemacgillivray
Website: www.madeleinemacgillivray.com

Transcript

Madeleine:
Hello! Hi!

Marcus Eriksen:
Alright.

Madeleine:
How are you?

Marcus Eriksen:
I'm good, I'm good, good to see you.

Madeleine:
It's good to see you too in this circumstance. Can you hear me by

Marcus Eriksen:
Yeah,

Madeleine:
the way?

Marcus Eriksen:
just

Madeleine:
Okay.

Marcus Eriksen:
fine. Yes.

Madeleine:
for you. You're like, you're driving. Can you just,

Marcus Eriksen:
Yeah.

Madeleine:
I don't know. You're like, you literally pulled over off the side of the road.

Marcus Eriksen:
Yeah, I'm just somewhere north of Salt Lake City. Just came back from Wyoming digging dinosaurs for last month. And I'm honestly, I'm packed to the ceiling of this van with dinosaur bones. It's pretty

Madeleine:
Oh my

Marcus Eriksen:
awesome.

Madeleine:
gosh, that's amazing.

Marcus Eriksen:
I'll find you one to show you in a second.

Madeleine:
Oh yeah, show me a dinosaur phone.

Marcus Eriksen:
Give me a second.

Madeleine:
Okay.

Marcus Eriksen:
Mark, dig one up. There we go. Here's one triceratops vertebrae. I gotta pick up their heavy as you can imagine

Madeleine:
Oh my gosh.

Marcus Eriksen:
That's one.

Madeleine:
That's amazing. Wow. It looks like a skull of like some large mammal or something. It's really quite crazy.

Marcus Eriksen:
Yes, I got probably a half a dozen of these back here. And then a couple of hip bones from Triceratops, a couple of T-Rex teeth we found, a nice Pachycephalosaurus skull. It's one of those dinosaurs that ran their heads together.

Madeleine:
Well...

Marcus Eriksen:
So it was a good field season and had 25 people join us. Probably

Madeleine:
Wow.

Marcus Eriksen:
10 of them were kids. So it's a lot of fun. Lots of families coming out, two scientists. Even had someone from Reykjavik, Iceland come join us. We're going to donate one skeleton to Iceland.

Madeleine:
Wow.

Marcus Eriksen:
That's part of a big science education project we've got going on.

Madeleine:
It's

Marcus Eriksen:
So

Madeleine:
amazing. OK.

Marcus Eriksen:
that's happening. How about you?

Madeleine:
I'm good. I'm really good. Yeah. I mean, like also a lot happening, not digging dinosaur bones. But I think I've just been continuing to deepen my research, my science communication. And I've been getting more involved politically in New York. It's been really great to be lobbying and kind of advocating. testifying and getting more involved in that space. So I'm just constantly

Marcus Eriksen:
Wonderful.

Madeleine:
continuing to explore. So yeah.

Marcus Eriksen:
Wonderful. Well, that's good to hear.

Madeleine:
Thank you. Yeah,

Marcus Eriksen:
I'm sure

Madeleine:
and we

Marcus Eriksen:
keeping

Madeleine:
launched

Marcus Eriksen:
you busy.

Madeleine:
this. Yeah, it definitely does. And this podcast has also kept me busy. It's really been wonderful to launch it. I... always had this, like, I started this nonprofit when I was very young, of course, with the help of my mom. And my vision was that everybody has their own unique kind of individual ways that they can contribute to climate justice. And my vision was like, we need, we all are superheroes and we need to become superheroes. And, you know, it dawned on me that to have a series of conversations now with people who really are you know, exemplifying what some what a path in climate or in environmentalism could look like, to really ground it for people, because so many people are very interested or anxious and don't actually know kind of how it works or how to begin. And the truth is that it actually is very unique to everybody. And, and that these conversations are just helpful to be like, what does one path look like? What does Marcus's path look like? And yours happens to be like, The one that in the back of my head has always been like, I can't wait to interview Marcus because it has

Marcus Eriksen:
Ha!

Madeleine:
impacted my life so significantly. So I just realized

Marcus Eriksen:
Thank

Madeleine:
that

Marcus Eriksen:
you.

Madeleine:
we should, I am technically recording, but this is like, we haven't started the conversation yet. So I wanna respect your time and like just get into it. I wanna

Marcus Eriksen:
Yeah,

Madeleine:
like basically

Marcus Eriksen:
yeah, let's

Madeleine:
continue

Marcus Eriksen:
try it.

Madeleine:
the conversation, but in a way where we're actually having the conversation. So I think it would be great to start with you just explaining a little bit more about like the fact that you are on the side of the road in a town somewhere and you just completed a dig and just give folks more context

Marcus Eriksen:
Context.

Madeleine:
on yeah, some context on where you're at what you just did.

Marcus Eriksen:
Okay, shall we start?

Madeleine:
Yeah, go for it.

Marcus Eriksen:
Well, you're catching me literally on the side of the road. I've just finished a month out in Wyoming digging dinosaurs. It's my 32nd year doing this. I've done since I was an undergrad, just kind of as a side hustle digging dinosaurs with the goal of building museums. And this year, I've kind of gotten back into that space, kind of part time, this part time doing my ocean plastics work. But I'm really just coming back from a month. in Wyoming, we were working on two triceratops skulls. I've got a couple of T-Rex teeth buried in the back of the car somewhere, a dozen vertebrae and ribs from triceratops, a Pachycephalosaur dome, all kinds of fun, fun fossils. That's intended for, you know, we've established a few museums, a Ventura County Science Center, new nonprofit this year, Eastern Wyoming Nature Center, a new nonprofit as of six months ago, LeapLab Florida. which is new as of a few months ago. And the idea is to sort of decentralize science learning so that the rural urban divide in terms of science understanding, we can fill that gap and put us all in the same, you know, level playing field. And part of that, part of the fun of science is you find these things that people really like. Like everyone loves dinosaurs, everyone loves it. And it's a great

Madeleine:
Totally.

Marcus Eriksen:
context to begin talking about science. So we're collecting tons of bones and plan to put those on public display around the country.

Madeleine:
That's amazing. I remember getting invited to one of these digs a few years ago and not being able to make it and always being bummed. And so maybe at some point in the future, I can

Marcus Eriksen:
Well,

Madeleine:
hop along.

Marcus Eriksen:
the door is still open. Yeah,

Madeleine:
Awesome.

Marcus Eriksen:
come on, join us, it's a blast.

Madeleine:
That's so

Marcus Eriksen:
We

Madeleine:
cool.

Marcus Eriksen:
have, we have to go back and finish those two skulls, triceratops skulls, we're in eastern Wyoming, about two hours north of Cheyenne. Really, we're on a 7,000 acre ranch, middle of nowhere, big sky country, and it's all a grassland today, but you dig

Madeleine:
Well.

Marcus Eriksen:
beneath the ground and you find like garfish scales and turtle bones and all kinds of dinosaurs. little pine cones, a whole different habitat that is gone. 65

Madeleine:
Yeah.

Marcus Eriksen:
million years ago, these things were buried. Now it's a very different place. So there's lots of room for science learning and just getting out in nature. That's really a lot of fun.

Madeleine:
Yeah, well that is what brought me to meet you and get to know Five Gyres. I mean, I think it's very important context that, you know, when I was 18, I, of course, my mom, because every mom always gets all the credit. She was like, you should apply to this expedition that is being organized by this climate advocacy and nonprofit stuff, but I was not at all involved in plastics or microplastics and I applied and then found myself on this lovely schooner with you and your amazing wife, Anna, and like Jack Johnson and all these legendary surfers and researchers. And I was like, what am I doing here? Like we sailed across the Bermuda triangle. It was such a... such a formative experience and literally started my whole path of curiosity and research in microplastics and communicating about the science of microplastics and connecting plastic and fossil fuels and climate. And it's because of what you're talking about, which is making science accessible and really fun. And obviously that kind of a trip is, I wish that everybody could be able to experience that trip. Being able to be like in the open ocean and seeing the sky in the way that I've never seen and being able to pull up samples all the time and meet people who are so just fantastic humans and engaging such information on this trip was like what, you know, it's like the best, it's the best way to get people involved. In that, in that, light, I would love to talk a little bit about Five Gyres because I think that's the other really important thing. It's also plastic free July. So we've been talking about plastic this month. And so maybe it would be helpful for listeners for you to also explain kind of the work of Five Gyres and give them more context on that

Marcus Eriksen:
What?

Madeleine:
before we kind of delve into to your path because that alone, like, you know, deserves its own entire episode.

Marcus Eriksen:
Well, sure. You know, this work on fossils I'm doing now is preceded by, you know, almost two decades working on ocean plastics. If we go back, you know, two decades ago, you know, before you joined us on that voyage, um, we had other voyages doing research, uh, try to really understand the problem of ocean plastics. You go back 20 years when we started and there really wasn't a dialogue about this issue. You've got early two thousands. Um, my, my colleague. Captain Charles Moore, he discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. He's credited with that discovery. He sailed across the Pacific from Hawaii to California and back and found abundant microplastics. What we found out, that was an accumulation zone, a patch. I worked with him for a few years and then we had a hard-to-hard conversation about there are these other garbage patches, other subtropical gyres in the world. At the same time, I met Anna, my wife, and collaborated on all these things, all things we do. And we sort of launched this organization to answer some very fundamental questions. Where, well, how much plastic trash is out there? Where is it? And what's the impact? And that took us on those sailing voyages. We were chartering sailboats, big sailboats, and selling all the seats on that boat in order to pay for the charter. and we began our organization, it was really scrappy in the beginning, and we had a chance to sell, I mean, at this point, the equivalent to going around the world twice. So many models we put at sea, published close to 40 publications so far that we've authored and co-authored, really answering those questions. And things are shifting quite a bit. I mean, I was answering emails this morning, maybe a month away from being on my fossil dig. Look at my string of emails. There's a lot of conversation about this UN global treaty. So we've

Madeleine:
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Eriksen:
gone from obscurity to a global treaty in 20 years. It's pretty awesome. But you know, I've had a chance to see all the stakeholder interactions. How does industry respond? Well, we saw it. How does the public respond? The public was outraged. The public didn't have good science. And industry was on the defense. Well, politicians were wanting to, I guess, answer the cries of the public and began answering questions. And the funding began to flow, and the science began to get done. It's been amazing seeing the interaction of multiple stakeholders on an issue that went from obscurity to on the global stage.

Madeleine:
Yeah, totally. I think you guys have had such a critical role in that. And it's even me getting involved with Five Gyres. That first expedition for me was nine years ago. And the term microplastics and all of the science, I've just watched it become more mainstream as I've been able to stay abreast of all the research. There's so much in what you just said because I I want to talk about the paper that you and Lisa put out on pathways. I also would love to talk about the fact of really the idea of balancing multiple stakeholders because I know that you also went on an expedition or gathered, you know, folks from kind of environmental groups and research groups and like plastics executives basically. And I would love to hear about that.

Marcus Eriksen:
Well, the funny thing is I got to push the guy from Dow into the ocean, the mid-Atlantic, which was a blast.

Madeleine:
Hahaha!

Marcus Eriksen:
I was like, yeah. But then actually he was a really good guy. We got a chance to talk. You know, when you talk to these stakeholders on one-on-one, they often understand where you're coming from. But these very big corporations, they've been around for decades and they're really good at what they do. And the power isn't necessarily in any one individual.

Madeleine:
Right.

Marcus Eriksen:
They have a board of shareholders and the CEO have a fiduciary responsibility to meet certain quarterly profit goals. It's amazing that can sometimes supersede the health of people on the planet.

Madeleine:
Yes.

Marcus Eriksen:
But I do enjoy interacting with industry because sometimes you can get in there. There's a great organization called As You Sell that they get

Madeleine:
Yes.

Marcus Eriksen:
themselves onto. these boards, they become stakeholders and they propose the changes from the inside. It's like playing inside baseball. That's one of the stakeholders I like to work with. Work with NGOs, you see where the points you can engage. So it is an ongoing battle. There's a lot of intelligence gathering on both sides. It's really sort of... So the high level and kind of smart, you know, how you try

Madeleine:
Yes.

Marcus Eriksen:
to outsmart each other. And I'm seeing that play out at the level of the United Nations. So you've got multiple stakeholders like industry and countries that one thing is to stay the way they are because the way things have been has been very profitable for a few.

Madeleine:
Yeah.

Marcus Eriksen:
So you've got entities that really want to focus on, Oh, just keep on recycling. We have these advanced. recycling techniques, let's just do that and not stop

Madeleine:
Right.

Marcus Eriksen:
reduction, not regulate the kinds of products that make the kind of chemicals they use. Let's just clean up. Let's just recycle. And that business as usual scenario is not going to work. We know for sure that we have to really aggressively, you know, shake things up if we're going to see a reduction in the impact, the harmful impact of plastics. the environment and on the lives of people. So it's the same conversations we've had for a couple of decades where some stakeholders want to keep things going as they are because it works so well and the rest of us say, no, time to shift. And that's playing out right now at the UN Global stage.

Madeleine:
Yeah, it's really fascinating to watch and I totally agree with this debate around how much do you involve folks who have been so part of the problem and how much kind of synergy can happen within that sort of framework. And I do think it's like a microcosm is a great example is like when I was first getting becoming more aware about. plastic pollution and trying to limit my own personal use. And I was trying to say no to certain like straws at the bar or at a restaurant. And I would encounter people who like did not understand or like maybe thought I was actually even being rude to ask. And I realized that there's a way to ask and you kind of have to speak their language in a way. It's like anything and it's kind of sneaky and you actually have to kind of get in there and be like a lighthouse, so to speak, instead of trying to be on the opposition. I think there's a very strong argument for that, although there's also strong arguments for all of it. But I think that type of work is very important.

Marcus Eriksen:
Yes, for sure, for sure. As you were speaking just now, I was thinking, it is kind of constantly having the conversation with people about their consumption. And that makes me think that constant, constant returning this to the same argument. In the big picture, I call it constant pressure over time. I've

Madeleine:
Mm.

Marcus Eriksen:
been at this for 20 years. It's still sometimes the same arguments. We're having incremental successes, and we're getting better and better. It's a global stage now. But you know, for activists, whether you're in climate or plastics, uh, deforestation, shark finning, anything you're in, it's constant pressure over time, you can't give up, you're constantly engaging. If you expect quick results, you're not going to succeed. You have to

Madeleine:
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Eriksen:
recognize it's an, it's a long battle and the winds

Madeleine:
Yes.

Marcus Eriksen:
are often incremental. Big wins sometimes, small setbacks sometimes, but I have found there's been, There's a constant improvement. Once people get it, then they don't turn back. Once you see the light, once you see behind the curtain and you help people see behind the curtain, they wanna make the right decision. When you talk to people about the impact of plastic trash on the environment, on people, on communities living near refineries, they're like, oh, I get it. And they shift their minds at their consumption. And that's, it's often one person at a time. It can be

Madeleine:
Yes.

Marcus Eriksen:
sometimes thousands in these big lectures that we give, but it might take years, could take a decade or two to get to where you want to be. But for your audience, it's never giving up.

Madeleine:
Yes.

Marcus Eriksen:
Never giving up. You're under pressure. And getting good people around you. Getting folks that understand policy, understand science, understand communications, that understand how to leverage social media. Filmmakers. I'm thinking now about our win on microbeads, and that goes back now, shoot, almost a decade.

Madeleine:
Yes.

Marcus Eriksen:
But we got the right people all in the room at the same time. And it's constant pressure over time, but bringing it all up to get the same time. We had at that time the microbeads, we had discovered those in the Great Lakes, and we in the street automatically saw a fight. We had Johnson Johnson and Procter & Gamble, like those aren't our microbeads, you can't stop making those. But we got videographers, we got Tulane Law School to draft the sample for legislation. We had tons of videos and blogs and white papers to share. Myself and Sam Mason published the first research paper identifying microbeads in the environment. And before you know it, within two years of publication of this paper, we got a federal bill into President Obama's hands at the time. And he signed this federal legislation. So it can happen quickly. That was fast, but it often happens slow. But to your audience, just never give up and you'll

Madeleine:
Mmm.

Marcus Eriksen:
see change over time.

Madeleine:
Hmm. You know, what you're saying makes me think of we could go in multiple different directions. But I want to just say, you know, first of all, the importance of having data for policy. And I would love to talk to you about, I mean, this could be also a separate conversation on policy routes, legal routes for trying to limit, you know, virgin plastic use from, you know, I'm thinking of kind of the deficit in research human impacts, potential human impacts from like a highly specified kind of long term perspective. But what I think is, you know, really critical about what you said is what we talk about on the podcast is it is this kind of long game. It is your path. It's not like you pick one thing and have to stick to it. And so I have a question and then I would love for you to delve more into your personal path, even separate from plastics and microplastics, because you have such a rich path in many different areas. But first, I would love for you to speak to the long game for you and how that's been. I mean, you've been at this work for 20 years. How, you know, what are the mechanisms or? you know, value systems that have sustained you during this time. Hehehehehehe

Marcus Eriksen:
So that's a big question. The value systems, I think, you know,

Madeleine:
You

Marcus Eriksen:
and

Madeleine:
can,

Marcus Eriksen:
of course,

Madeleine:
it's an open question. You can

Marcus Eriksen:
sure,

Madeleine:
answer it

Marcus Eriksen:
sure.

Madeleine:
however you want to, yeah.

Marcus Eriksen:
And this all goes back to, you know, what you love, what you think is right and wrong in the world. I mean, in my experience, we can go into more detail, but I grew up, I grew up in Louisiana. I was catching snakes and turtles as a kid. I loved nature. I had the neighborhood zoo when I was 15 years old, 96 turtles in a pond. I built, so I love nature and the defense of nature is very important to me. I also had a sense of service. Now when I go up the deep south where what you do to serve, you either, if you don't go to college or don't get a job, you join the military. So I was in the Marines for six years. Now I found myself in Operation Desert Storm fighting in Kuwait in 1991 among all the burning oil wells. It had a huge impact. on me, seeing actually a very depressive one, because I was very pessimistic coming back from that experience. But I made a promise to myself when I went to war, and I was actually, I was sitting in a sandy hole in the ground, a foxhole, with another Marine from New Orleans. And we said, hey, if we survive this war, let's build a raft. And like Huckleberry Finn had this rafting adventure. And I couldn't find him 13 years later, back in 2003. So I built my raft anyway, and I had a friend drop me off in Lake Itasca, Minnesota. And I spent five months rafting the length of the Mississippi River. And having had that love of nature, that sense of service, what that experience gave back to me, it gave those things back. It gave back my love of nature, because I was in it, and it's comforting. And being around other living things is very different than being around other humans.

Madeleine:
Yes.

Marcus Eriksen:
There's something about nature that just, it just is healing. And I also recognized that I was returned to understanding the basic goodness of people. I had people that fed me, gave me clothing, gave me housing, fixed my raft. I remember one night in Arkansas, I came upon some people firing guns on the side of the river. I climb out of the river and it's a bunch of kids just shooting cans. And here I come out, I got a beard and I'm all scruffy

Madeleine:
Ha ha

Marcus Eriksen:
and

Madeleine:
ha.

Marcus Eriksen:
scraggly, a river rat. And they were terrified for a brief moment. Then just had this great conversation, a bunch of, there's three kids. And I said, where's the next boat launch so I can pull over and put up my tent. And I put up my tent, then like 10 o'clock at night, these headlights are shining at my tent. I'm like, who the hell is this waking me up? And I was kind of. bummed about it. I opened my tent and there's the same three kids and they brought me you know I think three or four heaping plates of food. It was Thanksgiving that day.

Madeleine:
No.

Marcus Eriksen:
So the basic goodness of people and that came back so I came back from the river you know again loving people loving nature and feeling a need to defend the river because what I saw was an unending trail of trash. I could always look on the left or right bank of the river and just see plastic trash, heaping piles of broken bathroom fixtures and so much remodeling job, roofing tiles and styrofoam cups everywhere, bottles and bottle caps and straws, all the single use plastic everywhere. And it really angered me. I was like, no, this is wrong. So I came back with very strong values. My value systems was rooted in a love of nature, in a sense of public service, and a love of people, the basic goodness of people, understanding of that. And that's when I came back and I found Captain Charles Moore. I found an article he wrote, and I said, I gotta find this man. I know

Madeleine:
Wow.

Marcus Eriksen:
the river, I gotta see the ocean. And he took me there, and within five years met Anna, and we decided we had to see the world. answer these basic science questions. So that was the foundation of my sort of value systems coming into this. And having to understand, you know, I said about constant pressure over time, that wasn't obvious in the beginning. I was kind of expecting very quick results. I thought

Madeleine:
Right.

Marcus Eriksen:
you could testify in front of a city council and say, oh, it's the way it is. Let's change it. No. You know, I would give a talk. I'd give like two minutes in front of a city council, right behind me is someone from American Chemistry Council to

Madeleine:
Yeah.

Marcus Eriksen:
say, well, you're going to disrupt our economic systems. Things work so well, recycling systems, just recycle, recycle. And I realized this could be a long, long battle, but you get the right people around you. You get the right passionate collaborators.

Madeleine:
Yes.

Marcus Eriksen:
And I was lucky. I met Anna Cummins, an amazing human being. My wife now of 14 years, a beautiful

Madeleine:
Wow.

Marcus Eriksen:
10 year old daughter. I mean, my daughter is only known every summer. She goes digs dinosaurs for a week. I mean, for a month.

Madeleine:
I remember you saying like when she was five, you came back and were like, she just found a triceratops shoulder and she was like five years old. Like what an amazing upbringing. What a cool situation.

Marcus Eriksen:
Yes. It actually parts that skeleton are in my van right behind me right now. I got some

Madeleine:
So cool.

Marcus Eriksen:
butter from that skeleton. It's going off to Iceland soon, but. Yeah, so that those were the value systems. You asked so much more just now, I forgot your

Madeleine:
No, you know, you

Marcus Eriksen:
definite

Madeleine:
answered

Marcus Eriksen:
question.

Madeleine:
it. You found a way to kind of answer it all by weaving in what got you into this work with plastic. And one of the things that I remember being so struck by when you spoke, I think it was on the boat in 2018 when we were sailing. again, through the Bermuda Triangle, which was such a formative experience for me. And one of the formative things is you spoke about your story. And you also spoke about your identity as such a creative individual, someone who is very artistic and using your art to actually get the message out around the world. I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about that too. Because as someone with you know, as a veteran, as someone who grew up in the way that you grew up and has found their way and woven through and established just such a critical kind of body of work. You know, I would love to delve into the importance and the role of creativity in your life. So maybe just giving folks a little bit of context first on the types of projects that you've done and kind of what sparked those. There's a lot, so you can maybe choose the ones that are the most, I don't

Marcus Eriksen:
There

Madeleine:
know,

Marcus Eriksen:
is a lot.

Madeleine:
important.

Marcus Eriksen:
Well, if you think about artwork and science, they're not mutually exclusive at all.

Madeleine:
Yes,

Marcus Eriksen:
I mean,

Madeleine:
totally.

Marcus Eriksen:
there is deductive science where you take what's known, one in one, one in one makes two, and you deduce an answer from observations. Then there's something called this creative leap where you don't have all the facts. And you're using a creative process to say, okay, my intuition, my experience, I think it's this, and you're creating a solution, creating an understanding of how things might be. That applies to artwork as well. In that creative process, it also allows... It's a great communication tool. It's a way to express complex ideas that a research paper cannot. And I'll tell you, back to microbeads for a second, we published the paper, and how many people are gonna read an abstract? Here in Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes, we found this many particles per square mile and blah, blah. It's interesting stuff and that often gets into policy, but the public likes to see something different. So what we did as a communication tool, We made this big sculpture. We took our four inch steel pipes and bent them into 12 foot diameter circles and six foot diameter rings and put bicycles that had electric generators in them. And we put da Vinci's for Truvian man, cut into eighth inch thick aluminum sheets in the middle of it and had vinyl tubing going all through it. So this big sculpture, you get four people on a bicycle riding this bicycle and it's powering water pumps. pushing microbeads through this vinyl tubing right out of the mouth into the chest around the arms and legs of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, the symbol of humanity. And that sculpture, it went to Coachella, went to Lighting in the Bottle, went to Burning Man, all these festivals. And it's sitting on my farm now on display. But that was a way, I mean, we reached tens of thousands of people that would never read an abstract. We also, we had very creative filmmakers making films about microbeads and microplastics. So

Madeleine:
Yeah.

Marcus Eriksen:
as a communication tool, it's essential. As a personal experience, it can be, you know, it serves self. So

Madeleine:
Yeah.

Marcus Eriksen:
if I look at my war experience, I tried really making sense of what I experienced. If your audience doesn't know, the Persian Gulf War back in 1991, Iraq had invaded Kuwait. Went to Kuwait and their idea was to access that country like what Russia is doing to Ukraine right now. And United States rushed in to support Kuwait, the liberation of Kuwait, which I thought was a reasonable thing. Okay, we're going to liberate this country. It's a sovereign nation. We should do that. Even though the population is 750,000 people, they're one of the richest countries on the planet, a center for fossil fuels, I began to say, okay, there's something else going on here. Definitely there is. Then three years later, we did nothing when there was a genocide in Rwanda.

Madeleine:
Hmm.

Marcus Eriksen:
Clinton did nothing when 800,000 people were killed, mostly by hand with machetes and hammers. There were more people killed in four months in Rwanda than the entire population in Kuwait. We did nothing. And for me being 20, in my early 20s, trying to make sense of where my value system fit in that, being a participant in that war and the things that I saw and did, I had very few outlets. And art was one, a beautiful one. So what I did... I remember, I'll tell you one experience that resulted in art. As we're going into Kuwait, this is the ground war. We're going into this inferno. On the horizon are burning oil wells everywhere. Just clouds of black smoke. We're a convoy of trucks going across the desert, past through a couple mine fields. We stopped at one point, there was a tank battle raging in front of us, our tanks are just destroying these Iraqi units, and we went through. Now remember, I look up and I see a jeep on the horizon, and next to the jeep, maybe 50 feet away, is an Iraqi soldier that's dead, a dead man.

Madeleine:
Mm.

Marcus Eriksen:
That's the first dead soldier we saw. And I stood up and I said, hey, look, a body. and the driver heard me, the truck stopped, there were 12 Marines in the back of the truck, we all jump out, we all go walk over and we're standing around this man. And he had been, his Jeep had been hit by, I'm guessing a tank round and exploded. He was thrown out, and I'm sorry to be graphic, he was almost cut in two pieces, and

Madeleine:
Hmm.

Marcus Eriksen:
he laid there on his back, but before this man had died, when he was... moving his arms and just writhing in pain, with his arms up and down, and he made like wings in the sand, the way kids make snow angels. And that stuck with me. I remember all the Marines standing around, all the garbage we've been saying about people, all the horrible things that dehumanize Iraqi soldiers, it all went away, it all vaporized. What we saw was... was a man that looked like us. He was our age, had a cleanly shaven face, except his intestines were laying out. He'd been washed by the rains. It was raining the whole time.

Madeleine:
Hmm.

Marcus Eriksen:
And no one said a word. In that memory, my first encounter with a dead soldier stuck with me. So, almost a decade later, I have... I made a sculpture of him and what I did was I took 70,000 steel bearings, about the size of a pea, and I began to make his body. So actually I took a mannequin, the process of the artwork, I took a mannequin, I contorted it to look like his body, I put a uniform on, I put boots, I cast my own hands and face, put that on him. I made a mold of the whole thing that began laying in these metal beads and welded them one at a time. It took me three years to make it. I welded every single bead on this and I ended up with this sculpture that looked just like him, just in steel. And I chose to use steel, these little metal ball bearings, because they represent the bullets that we shoot at each other. They represent the shrapnel that flies from bombs. It represents the steel that we put in our bodies, our helmets. the vehicles that we drive in. In a desert war, you only have, you have steel, you have sand, and you have flesh. Those are the three kinds of matter, and they're all moving in and out of each other. I was going into steel, into steel vehicles, shooting steel, my body is flesh. I was going into sand, holes in the ground to hide. Sand was going into me when I ate. Every time I ate a meal, I couldn't, I couldn't bite down from fear of biting on sand all the time, so I used

Madeleine:
Mm.

Marcus Eriksen:
those three materials. So I made this sculpture and I sent pictures to the National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago. I got a letter saying, please bring it. So I put it back in my van, I brought the sculpture to them and I insisted they put sand on the floor.

Madeleine:
Hmm.

Marcus Eriksen:
So I covered the whole room with sand, laid the sculpture down and behind his arms I made wings. just the way I saw the man, made the wings on this Iraqi angel. And from there the sculpture went to St. Petersburg, Russia, actually to a studio there. And now it's back in my garage, I still have it. But

Madeleine:
Wow.

Marcus Eriksen:
that experience was so healing. And I've had so many veterans who've seen that, that then they open up, they talk and I say, you're telling me your story, but tell your story to the world through whatever medium you want. No, write it down or write a poem just for yourself to have, but put it out there. Put it out there. I pay attention to a lot of veteran art. And there is a lot of art coming from veterans now. I mean, the U.S. has been in war in Iraq and Afghanistan for two decades. There are so many veterans. So many have suffered. So many more. Like, I think it's almost 10 to 1. No, 7 to 1. by suicide and those who have died in war. There's such a need to use art and therapy and all the tools we have just to save lives. So art personally, it serves, it serves me. It lets me, you know, suffering is a distraction from the greater things that humans can do.

Madeleine:
Hmm.

Marcus Eriksen:
And when you're in this cycle of suffering, you're not able to live your best life, your full potential. So through art, you can relieve yourself from that suffering and then you can blossom. I mean, I was struggling a bit. When I first met Charles Moore at the same time, I was actually making the sculpture, those years I worked with him. But it wasn't till that was, I had created that, it had gone to museums, but I had, that was kind of inconsequential. I made the piece and I was kind of done with it. It had served its purpose. And it made me ready for meeting and loving Anna, my wife. I was a better human, I was ready. So I think art serves the individual in such complex ways, but then it serves the movement. It served our work on plastics, make us better scientists. to communicate better to multiple audiences. So I know that was a long answer to a question, but art is indisposable to science and activism. It's essential

Madeleine:
Yes.

Marcus Eriksen:
to our work.

Madeleine:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that. I know that you are, obviously you wouldn't be sharing it if you, you know, didn't want to, but you know, it's still a very vulnerable and, and personal thing to share. So, so thank you. And I'm thinking, you know, about several different things. Firstly, yes, just the power of art and how healing it can be, and how healing it is, and you know, the idea of kind of self-preservation in this long-term fight and how creativity can be the catalyst for such self-preservation and joy. And obviously people, you know, there's a spectrum of how accessible joy can be to people, as you said, who are, if you're fighting for your livelihood, if you're not in the right place, if you're... someone who has had their resources extracted, any number of things, it can be less accessible to be doing this work from a place of joy and fulfillment. But if you are someone who has the ability, you have to create, you know, your work has to fulfill you in ways like personally to the soul. And I think that is such a critical thing to talk about. I personally have definitely had to kind of talk to myself in the sense of, you know, being also a creative person and thinking creatively and how, you know, kind of talking to myself in a way that helps me understand that, as you just said, you know, science and creativity are not separate whatsoever. And that if I'm going to be kind of happy and self-fulfilled while I continue this work, I have to combine the two and I get to. Because I think for some reason there can be like a guilt for people who are really fighting for climate justice and exposed to a lot of information that is like not very positive about just the state of the world. And so it's very critical. kind of touch on the idea of the collective and how this work is not individual. And it sounds like there were so many people along your path who really helped you and who you kind of, this is a very collaborative experience. We had a guest on, her name is Willow, and she's the editor in chief of a fantastic publication called Atmos. And she talked about the service of the collective and how none of this work is truly individual and it really is a community effort. And I believe you touched on that really beautifully as well. So those are the,

Marcus Eriksen:
There's

Madeleine:
yes.

Marcus Eriksen:
just I think there's so much more power in letting go of yourself. Um, no, all of us were born with egos. And when you let them go, like I've found now I get greater joy now when I can. Give to collaborators and expect nothing in return. I was talking to someone the other day. We had a scientist out in the field digging fossils. young scientist, 21 years old, was asking questions about what advice for a career path. And I said, if you give everything away, you'll always have what you need. And I found that to be true, that now I really like giving opportunities away. In the past, when I first began as a scientist, I was like, okay, I need to be the lead author on this paper. or I need the organization to come first. My logo's gotta be on everything. And you let go of that and when people see that you're not in it for yourself, you're in it for the movement, number one, they're more than likely to want to work with you, to share with you back. And I have found that there's so much joy in just giving authorship to others. And whether I want a paper or not, just to say, look, here, all of our archive samples are here or here's some ideas to share. Do you want to be co-author? No, that's okay. Let's just have a great conversation. I love it. I love it a lot. So yeah, I think part of the collective is for the individual's role is to learn to let go of the sense of self and find that the power and the joy of being part of a collective It doesn't matter. It becomes obscure. It becomes sort of meaningless. That is such a much more powerful place to be than trying to push your own or your organization's agenda. You're so much more powerful. You realize that, then you can really better fulfill your organization's mission and your own personal mission, I think.

Madeleine:
Totally, absolutely. In that light, I kind of wanna just give you the opportunity to share if you have any additional pieces of wisdom, which you've already shared a lot. So this is just putting it out there. If you have any other pieces of thought pieces or just advice for someone who might be listening who actually... who doesn't, because also I will say this entire conversation, I've been thinking like, how did he get access to like welding steel barrels? Like how did you make this junk? Like you are so resourceful and you have like, it seems like you just have a natural incredible level of like stick to it-ness and capability. So I like, but like, you know, for people who are just listening, who are like, Gosh, how do I get more involved in fighting the plastics crisis? How do I learn more, kind of as a starting point, aside from these fantastic, really rich kind of values and pieces of wisdom? Do you have anything else to say for folks in terms of just recommendations or direction?

Marcus Eriksen:
Well, I think I would reiterate what you just said, the stick to it-ness.

Madeleine:
Mm.

Marcus Eriksen:
That's been essential. I mean, a lot of people that know a lot and do a lot, a lot of different subjects, they sort of touch on a bunch of things and they lose interest and move on. If you do that, you're not going to get as much success as in sticking with something, just focusing. And it goes back to the constant pressure over time. find something, stick with it. You can, of course, you can modify your path on the way as new opportunities come up and new threats can be addressed, but you gotta stick with it. So having that resilience, staying with it is one big piece of advice. And the other is that I think has worked for us is really diving into the unknown. Like when Anne and I first began this organization, the Five Gyres Institute, we didn't have a boat, we didn't have any research equipment, hadn't even published a paper yet. We were just in love and were passionate about the ocean. So we kind of just dove in and it was not easy. It's not gonna be easy. If you're gonna try and change the world, it's not gonna be easy. And we sort of dove in and you're gonna have failures. You're gonna stumble, you're gonna waste time and money on paths that are unfruitful, but just diving in. So Ann and I, we did that and we put our intention out there. and also dive in on big things, go big. So he said,

Madeleine:
Mm.

Marcus Eriksen:
we wanna answer this question, how much trash is out there? Where is it? What's the impact? We need a boat. So we're able to find this guy, Ron Ritter. I mean, he's such a passionate man. He bought this boat and he said, I wanna help you guys out. He was beginning his organization, we're beginning ours. So suddenly had this 72 foot racing steel hulled sailboat to go around the world. We did a dozen expeditions with Ron Ritter and Pangea Explorations. And we didn't have equipment so I learned to weld and build it. And

Madeleine:
Mmm.

Marcus Eriksen:
this was me just as an apprentice finding the people that can help me out. So don't be afraid to ask anyone for help. If your values are good and your mission is big, people are going to want to help you.

Madeleine:
Yes.

Marcus Eriksen:
So I got equipment. Then we just went and I found collaborators. Sam Mason, Nikolai Maksimenko, who helped me to do modeling, Lauren Labreton, a really good scientist, Wynne Cowger, Lisa Erdl, who I work with now. Amazing scientists, young and old. You work with them, and the collaboration is so much fun. But you've got to dive in. Go big and dive in and never give up. And just those three things, you'll see change happen over time.

Madeleine:
Marcus for president. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

Marcus Eriksen:
No way. Thanks, Madeline.

Madeleine:
Yeah, maybe not. Not in this political environment. Yeah. Thank you. I just want to give you the opportunity to say anything else that you, you know, didn't get to say if you have any thoughts. I'm also personally curious about, you know, what your thinking about in the future what your next steps are, what you're currently working on after this dig. Can you kind of give a little context on like what's going on or what your vision is, kind of moving forward?

Marcus Eriksen:
Sure, sure. So real quick, the Five Jives Institute is still going strong. We have an amazing team, really good people, good communicators, good fundraisers, good scientists, educators. I'm really proud of our team. Anna Cummins, my wife, she runs the organization. She puts most of her time into it. I'm kind of there part-time. You know, part of this is knowing when to sort of step back when you've had your role. And seeing now it's really in the world of policy and the fine tuning of science. So Lisa Ertle works on microfibers primarily, but it's kind of kind of a jack of all trades. Really good scientists and our team working with Lisa are doing some good work. For me, the bigger vision now, we have a new organization called LeapLab

Madeleine:
Right,

Marcus Eriksen:
and it's decentralizing.

Madeleine:
we didn't even talk about LeapLab. Yeah.

Marcus Eriksen:
Yeah, it's a fairly simple concept is by putting nature and science centers in small towns across America. If you look right now, the problem we had with fake news and alternative facts, and the misunderstanding of science, that somehow science is a liberal conspiracy, all this stuff is partly because there is a lack of science literacy in our country, where we don't all understand how science works, the benefit of science, the process. of science thinking. And that part that I think is because one part of it is that you've got the big science institutions around the world, around the United States, are in big cities. If you want to see a dinosaur, you want to see a big museum, big science center, the zoos, the aquariums, they're all in cities. But half the country is in rural America. So why should we not decentralize the informal science learning model so that every small town... has a nature and science center. And they're all thinking in the same way about science. And all these, this whole network can share exhibits, can share education programs, can share opportunities to go dig dinosaurs or go sailing around the world. So that's what LEAP Lab is, decentralizing access to science to improve science literacy across America.

Madeleine:
Wow.

Marcus Eriksen:
So.

Madeleine:
And how can people get involved or learn more? Is it LeapLab? Like we'll put stuff in the description so people

Marcus Eriksen:
Sure.

Madeleine:
can access it.

Marcus Eriksen:
So leaplab.org is our umbrella site. We have three little small science centers that are growing in Ventura County, California, Eastern Wyoming Nature Center, and Lusk, Wyoming, then LeapLab Florida, it's in Fort Pierce, Florida. We're gonna test the model and then formulate the offer to communities across the country. Almost like the way Andrew Carnegie built over 2,000 libraries in the US. He simply

Madeleine:
Totally.

Marcus Eriksen:
said to small towns, if you commit some land on Main Street and you commit a librarian in perpetuity, I'll build your building in full of books. How's this offer? So we're gonna format our offer. It might be, here's your free dinosaur. Here's some expedition opportunities, a traveling exhibition, education programs. All you gotta do is take that old building on Main Street, just make it to a science center. And so that's your work right now. Prove the model, make the offer, and then. try and change the country.

Madeleine:
That is so cool. Thank you, Marcus. Thank you so

Marcus Eriksen:
But

Madeleine:
much.

Marcus Eriksen:
you gotta come dig bones with us.

Madeleine:
Yes.

Marcus Eriksen:
You're welcome. The invitation's open for you to come dig

Madeleine:
Thank

Marcus Eriksen:
down

Madeleine:
you.

Marcus Eriksen:
as soon as

Madeleine:
Okay,

Marcus Eriksen:
anytime.

Madeleine:
I absolutely will. Thank you. Thank you so much for this conversation, for bringing all of what you said, and I think that it's gonna be so impactful for people. And I'm really looking forward to hearing what people have to say about it. So. Thank you for driving off the road and stopping in your car to have this conversation. Thank you.

Marcus Eriksen:
Thank you. It's great to see you again. Thanks, Madeleine.

Madeleine:
No. OK. OK, Marcus, I'm going to stop the recording.