It Runs Downhill: The Fight to Save Florida’s Indian River Lagoon —
In 2018, University of Central Florida undergraduate student Heidi Waite published a study in the journal “Marine Pollution Bulletin” that found that oysters in the Mosquito Lagoon, the lagoon’s northernmost end, had the highest level of microplastics ever measured — at any time, anywhere on Earth. Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic that measure less than 5 millimeters in length, the leftovers of larger pieces of plastic gradually breaking down. Researchers have found that these tiny piece