“When you think about microplastics and nanoplastics infiltrating every corner of the environment and every ecosystem—what they’re doing to the brains of fishes or every other organism on this planet—we know for a fact that these particles get into fish brains. They get into mammal brains. They’re probably in our brains. When does it become too much plastic?” — Matt Simon
Matt Simon (@mrMattSimon) has been a science journalist at Wired magazine for nine years. He covers a range of beats, including biology, robotics, climate change, and of course, microplastic pollution. Matt released A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies on October 27, 2022, and is also the author of two previous books: The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar: Evolution’s Most Unbelievable Solutions to Life’s Biggest Problems cataloged the strangest creatures on Earth and won an Alex Award in 2017. This inspired his second book, Plight of the Living Dead: What Real-Life Zombies Reveal About Our World—and Ourselves, which dove deep into the science of how parasites mind-control their hosts, published in 2018.
Matt was a recent guest on our October 27, 2022, webinar: A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies. We had a record number of questions asked during the webinar and not enough time to answer them all so we invited Matt to an interview with Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC) Communications Manager Erica Cirino to answer the unanswered questions from the webinar. Watch here.
Both Matt and Erica’s books are available for purchase from Island Press for a 25% discount using promo code PPC25.
★ A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies
by Matt Simon
★ Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis
by Erica Cirino
Find these two titles and more in our 2022 Plastic-Free Holiday Gift Guide! The Guide also features a wide range of eco-friendly products from Business Members committed to stopping plastic pollution. Enjoy discount codes up to 30% and support plastic-free giving. Access the guide for free here.
Take our pledge to commit to making a world free of plastic pollution!
I fought many lawsuits to stop this lasting over 20 years. Plastic is a sponge for PCBs and causing cancer and killing the oceans. It’s the most important issue facing life on earth.
I’m the President of Recycle Hawaii and our goal is to ban single use plastics from entering the state of Hawaii. Total eradication of all plastic packaging is our broader push. The Executive Director is handing out copies of A Poison Like No Other to legislators.🤣😳🙏
I’m also the founder of Clean The Pacific. We remove plastic from the shorelines of North Kohala, 90% of which is from the commercial fishing industry. I’m closely aligned with Hawaii Wildlife Fund, a non-profit that removes plastic from the Southern end of the island. You’ve probably seen videos of Kamilo Point, (trash beach). The ED of HWF was shipping the enormous bundles of commercial fishing tackle to Oahu, where it was burned in an ill conceived waste to energy scheme, but now we agree, landfilling is the best course of action now. Stopping the stream of plastic is the only solution. Mechanical and chemical recycling just makes the problem worse.