Four years ago, Alex Weber was diving with her father in the waters off Pebble Beach, California. Suddenly, she spotted something strange: thousands of golf balls! The hard plastic spheres cluttered the ocean floor.

Alex, who was 16 at the time, was alarmed by the trash. So she, her dad, and some friends began collecting the balls. Each time they dove, the group removed at least 500 of them. But when they returned, the seafloor would be blanketed with balls again. “They didn’t stop coming,” says Alex. 

That’s because golf courses line that area of California’s coast. The golfers playing there had been hitting balls into the ocean every day for decades. Alex wondered: Why wasn’t someone fixing the problem? Then she realized that she could be that someone.

Pieces of Plastic

Once Alex knew the source of the golf balls, she thought fixing the problem would be easy. She visited local golf courses and told the owners where their balls were ending up. But the businesses didn’t seem concerned.

So Alex emailed Matthew Savoca. He’s a biologist at Stanford University who studies how plastic pollution affects ocean life. Savoca had never heard of the problem of golf ball pollution. But when he saw Alex’s massive golf ball collection, he decided to join her cleanup effort. 

The outside of a golf ball is made of hard plastic (see Golf Ball Breakdown, below). In the ocean, it wears down, shedding tiny plastic bits called microplastics. “Marine animals mistake the particles for food and eat them,” says Savoca. That can harm or kill the animals.

Savoca estimated that the balls they collected over two years had released more than 27 kilograms (60 pounds) of microplastics into the ocean. The cores of some balls also contain chemicals that can be toxic to marine life.

Spreading the Word

As Alex’s team collected the balls, Alex carefully documented the work. Gathering evidence would help them write a research paper about the project, Savoca explained. The paper might convince people to care enough about the problem to help fix it.

In total, Alex and her crew collected more than 50,000 golf balls! Alex worked together with her father and Savoca to write a research paper about the project. In January 2018, it was published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, a major scientific journal. 

The paper suggested some solutions for the problem. For instance, golf courses could use signs warning golfers to hit balls away from the shore. They could educate golfers about golf ball pollution. Golf courses could also work to retrieve the balls from the water.

Alex presented her findings to the local golf courses. This time, the owners paid attention. Now they’re cleaning up their act. It’s amazing what a determined kid can do!