In 2018, I sailed to one of the most remote places on the globe, the north Pacific. Despite being thousands of nautical miles from the nearest human settlements, I saw so many large plastic litter items, such as broken plastic buckets, floating past the boat. But this was nothing compared to the number of smaller, colourful plastic pieces my crew mates and I were collecting day after day.
X Trillion, a new documentary film being screened at independent cinemas around the UK, charts the progress of that 3,000-nautical-mile voyage across the north Pacific as I sailed from Hawaii to Vancouver as part of a pioneering all-women crew. This trip was organised by eXXpedition, a not-for-profit organisation that runs sailing research expeditions at sea (and now virtually) to investigate the causes of and solutions to the global plastic pollution problem.
