I am dismayed to learn that clams are eating our Lululemons.

It wasn’t the mention of microplastics that got my attention. Microplastics are mainstream discussion these days, as they should be. It was the fact that eight pages into the book I was reading, I learned that most of the microplastics ingested by sea snails in the deep arctic are fibers shed from yoga pants. That. I read it again. A mollusk minding its own business in the depths of the remote arctic, far away, and probably in a site much more peaceful than that of my New York City apartment, is unintentionally consuming threads shed from Lululemons.

That was the first exclamation point that lingered in the back of my conscience as I read The Sound of the Sea, Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans by Cynthia Barnett.

The second came 200 pages later. “Pacific oysters in the northwestern United States have been found with an average of eleven bits of microplastic each — mostly micro-threads that shed from yoga pants and fleece jackets in the wash.” That was the straw (no plastic pun intended) that broke the camel’s back. Read How Yoga Pants Destroy the Ocean here.