How can we Mitigate the Harmful Effects of Plastic on the Marine Environment? There are several unknown and unintended consequences that accompany our overuse and mishandling of plastics. Enormous quantities of plastic enter marine and freshwater environments each year. This presentation explores how developing accessible tools for the detection and quantification of plastics is key to understanding the world’s plastic problem and hence improving our plastic strategy and increasing public awareness. I describe a protocol I developed in collaboration with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science that rigorously quantifies plastic pollution using accessible techniques and tools.