How Microplastics Infiltrated Our Food (And One Way To Get Them Out)

Oysters are powerful ecosystem engineers—they filter water, reduce ocean acidification, and build reefs that act as natural breakwaters, protecting our coasts. But the plastic gear used to farm them is doing irreversible harm to the very ecosystems oysters help restore.

Abby Barrows, a marine scientist and microplastics researcher turned oyster farmer, is confronting this paradox head-on. At her Maine-based oyster farm, Deer Isle Oyster Company, Abby is pioneering plastic-free aquaculture gear—and in doing so, she’s challenging not only how we farm oysters sustainably, but also how we imagine the future of aquaculture itself.

Women of the Earth, produced by Summer Moon Productions, featuring stories of women across America who are leading a new movement to restore and protect the land. By focusing on women in land stewardship roles, the series will explore women’s unique relationship to the earth and their innovative undertakings to heal the earth from climate change.

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