26/07/2026
We discovered Erik Stensland Photography on a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park…a wonderful photographer, writer, & instructor. He’s now working on a video about plastic pollution. Read more below & enjoy a few of his captures.
“Did you know that every year around 9.5 metric tons of microplastics are deposited in Rocky Mountain National Park by wind and rain. A recent study of rainfall above Bear Lake found that 90% of rain samples contained shards and threads of colored plastic. Other studies of the Colorado River have found plastic in 100% of the samples taken along the river, even at the very source of the Colorado River. There is really no place on earth free of these plastics. They are now found in the highest mountains, in the deep ocean, in our drinking water, in our blood, in our brains, and even in breast milk feeding these new lives while they are the most vulnerable.
These plastics are causing all sorts of problems affecting the health of fish and wildlife, increasing the speed of snowmelt, and causing a wide variety of very serious human health impacts, which we are just starting to understand. Researchers are finding that this is interfering with our cardiovascular, respiratory, and reproductive systems, and possibly more. I think with all the studies currently being done we're going to learn a lot more in the coming decade about what all of this is doing to us and to the wild world. It's a very important topic that I hope that humanity can begin focus on.”