INTERVIEW • SEPTEMBER 5, 2025
in conversation with madeleine macgillvray: microplastics, community, and the art of actionable environmentalism
INTERVIEW BY SUCHI JALAVANCHA
SUCHI: CAN YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF AND HOW YOU DISCOVERED ODDOBODY?
MADELEINE:
I’m a lifelong climate advocate and microplastics specialist. Shira and I met 10 years ago through a mutual friend, Marcia Patmos, who has a wonderful, consciously produced fashion line in Brooklyn, M.PATMOS. Shira was about to launch ODDO, and it's been so wonderful to follow along the journey. At the time,I was moving from Citizen Science on microplastics into fashion. There's such a direct pipeline, no pun intended, on the Fossil fuel side, from microplastics to fibers.
SUCHI: HOW DID YOU GET INTO THIS SPECIFIC AREA OF RESEARCH? WAS THERE A SPECIFIC CATALYST?
MADELEINE:
I have been participating in climate activism since I was a kid, because I grew up with a nonprofit-environmental-attorney mom who was working in areas that were really on the front lines of fossil fuel extraction. I found myself at 18 on a boat that sailed across the Bermuda Triangle with a bunch of researchers and musicians, and surfers; we sampled the ocean for a week, and it changed my life. That was the beginning of my microplastic research. I had the immense privilege of not only meeting, but being inspired by people who are climate heroes. That trip catalyzed the start of my focus on microplastics, which I have sustained for the past decade.
SUCHI: WHAT EXACTLY ARE MICROPLASTICS? WHERE DO THEY COME FROM? AND WHERE ARE THEY?
MADELEINE:
Microplastics are tiny pieces of refined oil and gas, which humans have miraculously made completely omnipresent. They’re creating some serious environmental harms, possibly climate harms, and,of course, human health harms, as well. The fundamental answer to that question is that petrochemicals, oil and gas, are extracted from beneath the surface of the earth. They are refined into various types of products, and those products are manufactured and sold, and then those products then break down into little pieces of plastic that are omnipresent and invisible.
There are a few different types of micro plastics:
Nanoplastics, which is when they break down to a size that we cannot see and that can infiltrate inside our cells.
Microplastics that are manufactured as microplastics. This is what we call pre-production pellets: these are pellets of plastic that get transported on barges that have gaps and holes in them and inadvertently wind up covering beaches, etc, even though their intended purpose is to bemolded into our laundry detergent bottles, plastic water bottles, etc.aundry bottles sitting in the sun, getting sloshed around by the waves, becoming brittle, leggings and synthetic fabrics being washed again and again in the washing machine, and then breaking down into a million pieces—also become microplastics.
Cosmetic rinse off micro beads, which companies had the brilliant idea of putting in our toothpaste, our face wash, that, luckily, a lot of legislation has moved forward in banning, are also microplastics.
It's important to not be alarmist when we talk about the potential public health implications of microplastics pollution.
The only thing worse than microplastics embedding themselves in your tissues and your placenta and sloshing around in your bloodstream. Is stressing about microplastics embedding themselves in your tissues and sloshing around in your bloodstream.
SUCHI: LET'S TALK ABOUT SYNTHETIC FABRICS SPECIFICALLY: WHAT ARE THE HARMS?
MADELEINE:
I'll try to speak quickly about synthetic fabrics, but I’ll try not to gloss over the important stuff. Over a third of the global microplastics issue is from synthetic fibers. That means that fibers and textiles are over a third of the microplastics issue globally. This is an incredible opportunity, and it's why we need to support non-toxic natural fiber,. Buying from small scale brands like ODDO are a start. There's a huge climate impact on many levels
• the transportation and the carbon required of extracting plastic from below the Earth's surface
• the fact that fibers are going to shed no matter what
• there's workforce and workplace harm implications for the folks making our clothes. They are exposed to much higher levels of fibers that get sheared off and shed. They're basically breathing them in and have no protection. There are very few workplace protections in place for folks who are working with synthetic fabrics
• the processes of production go far beyond producing natural fibers. Oftentimes, synthetics are created alongside treatments or dyes that are synthetic. And so, when you think about textiles and avoiding toxins,it may start with the fiber, but we also have to consider the dyes and the other kind of softeners and performance related treatments that are added to a lot of synthetics, which have implications on the health, of not only the folks who are making our clothes, but there's also new research coming out every day, around the implications of fabric to skin, right?
When we sweat, when we go into a sauna, when we exercise, when we are walking around in the 100 degree weather in Brooklyn these days, our pores are open. And when our pores are open, it allows whatever is on the surface of our skin, to absorb whatever is laying directly on top of it. Our skin is a breathing organ and synthetic fabrics are documented as being toxic. If I could tell everybody in the sauna, who are in a synthetic bathing suit (which is probably about 98% of people who sauna), that you're basically canceling out all the “detoxing”, this interview would be a great PSA.
It's really important that we don’t just live in natural fiber, but also understand, especially when heat is a factor, that the implications and the harms, from a health perspective, of synthetics vastly increase.
SUCHI: WHAT ROLE DOES THE CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY PLAY IN YOUR RESEARCH AND ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICE?
MADELEINE:
So when we talk about the public health implications of microplastics, it's so important to remember that we can take action, that this is all actionable. The cortisol spike caused by thinking about this when we cannot actually affect things, is what we're trying to avoid. So I like to talk about microplastics from a perspective of, “pick your poisons.” Plastic is simply everywhere. Microplastics affect certain communities more than others. Certainly, people living next to refineries, people living in areas of low waste infrastructure, predominantly folks of color and lower income communities are way more at risk for higher microplastics exposure, and also the health implications from living next to these processes.
The plastics industry is doing what the cigarette industry did: they're sowing doubt. It’s nothing new. This is because we do not have hyper specific, comprehensive, 15 year long, 1000 person studies on the direct correlations.
But what we do have is the precautionary principle, which says that we can look at something and know that it's bad for us. We don't have to know exactly how bad it is for us in order to take action. Microplastics are toxic. Not only are the compounds within plastics known endocrine disruptors–proven to affect our hormones negatively, especially in utero and in the developing child, microplastics are magnets for toxins in the environment. So if a piece of plastic is floating around in a body of water where many persistent organic pollutants are also floating around, they bind to plastics because they're both hydrophobic.
That means that the microplastic that we might ingest by accident is not just plastic, it's also more highly concentrated with toxins that just exist in the environment. And the specific effects of this, again, have to do with we have incredible research coming out on the link between microplastics in the heart and chronic heart disease and higher increased risk of fatality from heart attack and other like heart related disease. We also have research on the kidneys and microplastics possibly affecting kidney function. Of course, we have tons of data on exposure. We know that we have lots of microplastics in our brain. But again, not to be alarmist, the spoon, the plastic spoon analogy, or linkage, is to be questioned. So we can't just like, be like, “oh, we have the equivalent of a spoon-worth-of-plastic in us. We have a credit card.” No, no, it's a little more complicated than that, but it's also not. We surely have microplastics in our bodies.
On a positive note, our bodies are smart. We know how to flush them out, so most of the microplastics we ingest, we actually excrete. But there are ones that, of course, get stuck in the environment.
We don't have to go into detail about how microfibers and microplastics impact marine life and other animals, but there is also solid research on how the presence of microfibers and microplastics actually negatively impacts the growth of plants, because we spray fertilizer that is like encapsulated in plastic…
There's also research coming out from some of my colleagues that is pointing to the potential climate impacts of microplastics in the oceans. Phytoplankton are the driving force of oxygen and carbon. They make up 70% of the world's carbon—they produce oxygen and they intake carbon. Phytoplankton have been eating microfibers, such as polyester and nylon microfibers, and that kills them, or interrupts their system enough so that they’re unable to do their job of regulating the Earth's carbon management process. So it's becoming more widely understood by the scientific community, that microplastics could be inhibiting phytoplankton's ability to do their job and therefore affecting the way that phytoplankton regulate carbon in the atmosphere.
SUCHI: HOW DO YOU SUGGEST THAT FOLKS AVOID CLIMATE DOOMISM?
MADELEINE:
The antidote to anxiety is action.
That is still a bit overwhelming, because I don't know about you, but to me, action implies some big thing or a longer term thing, I would like us to rephrase a tiny bit with just the addition of one word and say instead, the antidote to anxiety is an action. So it could be anything. It doesn't have to be climate related whatsoever. We are a creative species. We birth, we create worlds. This is the miracle of our existence: that we are creative.
I think too often the narrative is that we are destructive. That we're destroying the planet and we're eating up all our resources. I think if we remind ourselves that instead of being destructive, we are, in fact, inherently creative, this allows us to tap into something completely different from doomism or hope or optimism or all of these words that happen when we're trying to push forward.
Doomism, optimism and hope – none of these are relevant. It is in our human nature to continue and we will find creative ways to live. Tapping into our innate creativity to sustaining will help us avoid climate doomism.
Remembering that you were born instead of remembering that you're going to die. (This is an idea from the philosopher Hannah Arendt, I'm obsessed with her.) There's also a little Nietzsche in here, and inspiration from a book I'm reading: Natality by Jennifer Banks. It's so freaking cool.
SUCHI: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE RECENT PREVALENCE OF INFORMATION/ATTENTION AROUND MICROPLASTICS? FROM YOUR SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE, IS THERE ANY NUANCE MISSING TO THIS KIND OF EXISTING ONLINE DIALOGUE? AND IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WOULD ADD?
MADELEINE:
The more people talking about microplastics, the better. I'm all for the microplastics memes. It’s insane that we have tiny particles of plastic in everything— people have to find a way to laugh about it. One meme is a picture of a spice shaker full of micro plastics! We're all made of stardust and micro plastics?!
I guess if there was nuance missing, it’d be the fact that this often comes as a response to people feeling that they cannot do anything.
I've gotten dragged online for saying that microplastics memes have potential to further the conversation. Yeah, it's a little bit doomist. But, it's because people really felt like they actually couldn't do anything, so we just need to shift the narrative that it's actually not totally futile to tackle this issue. I love memes. I will also bring this to a conference. I just spoke at the World Health Organization conference about fracking and how microplastics are actually an airborne pollutant as well that needs to be incorporated into the conversation. And I was telling all these world leaders that microplastics memes are really important. You cannot just shout into the void. You need to speak to people in a way that they will listen. The other nuance missing, in particular, talking about research (this is why I have a job), is because there are huge silos and discrepancies between the research and the rest of us. So science communication is a real thing. A lot of headlines sensationalize.
Journalists can be a little bit more discerning and we can be a little more critical.
Just stay curious. Understand that there is going to be nuance with research. Read multiple articles about these topics and try to get a more diverse perspective. But, that doesn't mean that we stop talking about it.
madeleine macGillivray (she/her) is a lifelong climate justice advocate and science communicator. madeleine is the climate communications and policy coordinator at seeding sovereignty, where she educates and organizes at the intersection of plastics and climate. she hosts a podcast called supersede, which answers the big collective question, "what can I do to further climate justice?” by featuring passionate climate doers across all sectors who have found their climate superpowers.
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