At the height of the pandemic, people were using nearly 130 billion disposable face masks globally each month—and many of them were not disposed of properly. Oceans already take on 8 million tons of our plastic a year. Here, a California sea lion prowling the kelp forests of Monterey Bay comes face-to-face with a new form of litter.

This article appeared in the Fall quarterly edition with the headline "PPE Under the Sea."