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Made from 12,500 plastic bottles, David de Rothschild’s, Plastiki, has successfully crossed the Pacific ocean after 130 days at sea. The journey – meant to help lessen our plastic imprint on the world’s oceans – began in San Francisco three months ago and ended today, 8000 miles later, in Sydney, Australia. You can read all about it at theplastiki.com. While you’re at it, sign a pledge to beat waste.
Photo credit: Plastiki
The 5 Gyres Project is the first comprehensive study of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. Beginning January 18, 2010, the project will travel thousands of miles across the North and South Atlantic oceans, collecting ocean samples to study plastic accumulation, as well as examining fish for possible plastic ingestion and toxins in their tissues. These expeditions will help further our understanding of the impact of plastic waste on the world’s oceans. Visit http://5gyres.org/ for more information (the site includes a What’s Happening Now blog).
Artist Dianna Cohen uses plastic as her primary medium. She’s also a co-founder of Plastic Pollution Coalition, an organization whose mission is “to create a global community and ignite a social movement that will eliminate the toxic impacts of plastic pollution worldwide.
You can visit Dianna’s online gallery at diannacohen.com. Plastic Pollution Coalition lives here.
For those who missed the blog over the Thanksgiving holiday, we’re extending Friday’s Focus and for those who didn’t, we’re adding three new posts. In short, the Green Ad Festival continues:
photo: Vince Alongi
If you were walking down the street and you saw a plastic bag lightly tumbling in the breeze, would you stop to pick it up?
photo: Bobbytee.
If you’d been with us aboard the Baylis, you would without question.
Welcome to the Derick M Baylis, a 65-foot auxiliary-powered sailing research vessel, a Prius at sea.
Chartered by Sealife Conservation, its mission is to inspire conservation of the Oceans by fostering awareness of the marine environment through research and education. On board, a mixture of open minds: a fifth grader and an ocean activist, college students and college grads, dads and daughters. The most obvious commonality is the desire to experience and learn.
Would you step out of your way to pick up that Styrofoam cup in the park?
A day aboard the Baylis would provide you with more than one reason to do it.
The Baylis has just left its slip and nets are manned on both the port and starboard sides. A candy wrapper is the first catch of the day, small, but certainly there’s not a thought of throwing it back. A simple standard has been set: if you see it, call it out, and it will get hauled in. During the trip to the sea, other debris is collected. The experience is underscored by living sea lions basking on a buoy, pelicans flying overhead, and twenty or so dolphin close enough that you can
hear them breathing and slapping the water. A drifting patch of kelp is hoisted on board and the passengers comb through the leaves looking for life’s beginning stages taking refuge in the safe haven. Tiny crabs and other little creatures are placed in beakers so they can be studied.
A torrent of plastic and other trash is impacting their lives, so while the ocean is where most of earth’s life begins, it seems to be our least-respected resource.
If you were strolling on the beach, would you salvage that plastic cup half buried in the sand?
photo: Alan.Slmak
If you knew the crew of the Baylis, absolutely, you would.
The Billabong seaplane rendezvous with the Baylis off the SoCal coast.
On board are three incredible, big-wave riders. Mike Parsons, Grant “Twiggy” Baker and Greg Long don’t look like the hell men they really are as they board the sailboat from a dinghy, calm and clearly intrigued. Each of them has surfed the largest waves in the world with that same studied character.
They understand the ocean and it’s contents. Around the globe, they have seen pristine beaches turn into dumps and witnessed a bounty of plastic bags and bottles mixed with syringes. They watch as the Baylis nets its own collection of discarded objects, using GPS to note the location.
Would you stop a boat to pick up a floating water bottle?
At this point you know the answer is yes. A manned net on the starboard side misses a plastic bottle and suddenly the boat is turning around to gather it – a 65-foot boat on a turnabout for a single water bottle. There are no complaints, only interest in the brand and where it is from. The 180-degree turn for the bobbing plastic makes a point – for if we can stop trash like this from ever leaving the land, it will never find its way to the ocean’s garbage dumps.
That plastic bag, tumbling in the breeze?
Are you going to pick it up?
There was a point in my life when I would have answered, “no.” Or perhaps I wouldn’t have answered the question at all. Today I find myself stuffing plastic bags in my wetsuit sleeve while surfing. There are funny looks from the others in the line -up until I explain that, to a turtle, a plastic bag looks just like a jellyfish. Suddenly, they understand.
Back aboard the Baylis: A chunk of Styrofoam is netted (the little foam balls that break-off are easily mistaken for food by fish and sea birds). A silver Mylar happy birthday balloon is scooped off the surface to a chorus of hilarious, helium-inspired cheers. Things change. I’ve changed. Anything is possible.
Aloha,
Steve Lawrence, greenlandoceanblue
**All unattributed photos by Steve & Madison
CLICK CHART TO ANIMATE.
Image: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. “Trash is swept up by the currents of a gigantic swirling vortex called the North Pacific Gyre.”
Hat Tip: greenpeace.org/usa/
Plastic film is a thin gauge packaging medium used as a bag or a wrap.
Every year we make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap the state of Texas.
More than 60 percent of plastic film uses low-density polyethylene.
Polyethylene is 100 years old this year.
That’s way beyond retirement age, right?
Hat Tip: http://www.greenfeet.net.
Photo taken from the ORV Alguita
The following is an edited blog post from the Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita. It’s followed by Steve Lawrence’s account of our journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. FROM THE ALGUITA: …after one attempt that caused the seaplane to bounce three times across the water before it found air and speed to climb back up, they aborted the mission. The pilot came over the radio saying they were unable to land due to the confused nature of seas producing large swells with only five knot winds. The captain said he understood and saw the rough ride they had with the attempt to land. And the pilot came back, “You should have seen what it looked like from here. It could have ended badly.” But all was not lost. The captain asked if the pilot he would check for any debris sightings. After making several laps around the area, the pilot came back on the radio to report they saw not one but two huge wind-rows of plastic debris. He started rattling off things they could recognize from above including a coat hanger. On his last lap around, the pilot preformed an air drop. The packaged contained something the captain had asked him to bring for a badly needed part for a generator. Thank you.
FROM GREENLANDOCEANBLUE CO-FOUNDER STEVE LAWRENCE:
17 September 2009
It is 5:30 am in Honolulu on this mid-September morning, the sky is dark and it is nearly soundless. Early, no doubt, but the energy brewing among those gathered is not generated from the airport hanger’s coffee pot. Indeed, the buzz this morning is all about the Patch.
We have come to the Kamaka Air Hanger with a singular itinerary – an historic, 600 mile flight into a southern portion of the North Pacific gyre, or as headlines across the world have broadcast it – The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. There we are to rendezvous with Captain Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation – the man who actually discovered the patch a decade ago. This is an unprecedented journey, and we are fortunate to have secured the Billabong Clipper – a Grumman Albatross – the only plane capable of the four hour journey, the ocean landing and the return to Hawaii.
There are nine passengers in all, including a pair of students (one journalist, one biologist), an activist, an eco website editor, a mayor’s consultant, and myself, a filmmaker. We are greeted by Jacob Asher from NOAA, who confirms the importance of the journey and instructs us on how to observe and log debris sightings along the way. Mr. Asher has done his fair share of debris overflights around the Hawaiian Islands in the past few years. “Mark the latitude and longitude with accuracy down to the minute in the first column” he explains while indicating a grid which specifies commonly sighted items ranging from ghost nets to general debris such as plastic bags.
After a safety briefing, the props kick over and we are soon airborne, banking northward as the morning sun pulls itself from the vast Pacific and a morning blessing appears in the form of a rainbow. Mobile phones are soon rendered useless, due not only to lack of service, but the deafening roar of the engines that hoist the 30,000 ton craft.
We fly at a relatively low 1000 feet, which offers a much more intimate perspective that the typical 40,000 feet of a commercial aircraft. In fact, even before the island behind us has faded from sight, we spot our first debris – a loose buoy, now just another piece floating garbage being slowly pulled out to sea by the centrifugal swirl of the gyre.
As we all settle in, Hayden Smith is already at work. Mr. Smith, the activist, intently watches the surface below, pen and pad at the ready, tearing himself away from the window only to confirm coordinates with the cockpit. As a Harbour Master (that’s Harbour with a “u”) in Auckland, New Zealand, he knows the business of marine debris better than most. At the age of thirty one, he is a veteran environmental protector. With the support of the government his efforts have been concentrated on Waitemata Harbour for the past seven years. He hopes his meeting with Capt. Moore will help him better understand the Algalita’s research, and how he might apply the knowledge to his work back home.
The farther we travel, the greater the frequency of debris spotting. Log sheet notations range from ghost nets to bags and bottles – visible even from this height.
Tellingly, the most abundant animal life spotted from the plane are the many birds that skim the ocean surface. Three hundred miles from the closest land mass, the birds scan the waters and dive in for lunch. Unfortunately, what appears to be ocean life is often degraded plastic lurking just below the surface. Hundreds of thousands of these birds die every year from mistakenly ingesting these toxic remnants.
Three hours into the flight and the debris sightings soon develop a kind of rhythmic cadence. Surface debris flies by like confetti on the surface below, styrofoam cups, basketballs, bags, pure trash scattered in the texture of the sea. As the plane descends closer to the surface, the debris stream is a constant… 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4… 4/4 time beats of trash with scattered accents along the way. A sad song indeed.
In the vast blue sea, we spot the Algalita research vessel. Circling the craft, the pilots search for a window to safely land.
We are told to fasten seatbelts, yet in our attempt to land we are nothing more than a skipping stone. What looked land-able from a higher altitude is in fact a small but lumpy mix of swells. We pull up and the pilots take a wide lap riding a wind line. This line we are flying along is an ocean convergence zone — an area of converging forces. In this case, the forces in opposition are strong ocean currents. Along this definition in the sea, from horizon to horizon, is a line of trash. We stare in awe at what looks like the high tide line on the world’s most polluted beach. It is composed of a variety of plastics and debris, everything from broken coolers to milk crates.
Unfortunately, no camera can fully capture the sickening sight, especially traveling at our air speed. Every photograph is a blur. Yet one thing is perfectly clear, man’s impact on the once pristine Pacific.
Most remarkably, what we see is only the tip of the iceberg. This is only the surface debris. Just below the surface, the synthetics are mistaken for plankton and other edibles. It is no wonder wild life and sea life feed on it. Unlike the animals that live in and around landfills, these creatures have not been conditioned over time to recognize hazardous foodstuff. Since these species have existed, the food chain could be “trusted.” That is no longer the case.
The equation becomes frighteningly obvious. Small fish eat the plastic, medium sized fish eat the small fish, large fish eat medium-sized… and who eats the large fish? We do.
As we ponder the implications, the plane makes another pass at landing alongside Moore …. to no avail. The sea is simply too rough. The plane begins a gradual ascent and the realization hits us all. The disappointment is most evident on Hayden Smith’s face. He fights the urge to appeal the pilot’s decision. It was a long trip to be denied the destination… traveling all this way and just getting the post card. But, as Smith realizes, our safety is the primary concern… and we have in fact seen what we came to see. In this case the pictures do not tell 1000 words, but what we have seen is indelible.
As I settle back into my seat, frustration soon gives way to a renewed sense of purpose. People will argue that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an urban myth, they will dispute its size and density…. but there are eleven more of us who now know the truth. The Patch is real. We may not be able to fathom how it all got here… or how we might begin to clean it up… but we can and must take immediate steps to stop it from growing any larger.
On Board the Billabong Clipper
Pilots Mike Castillo, Lynn Hunt
Team Joel Clausen, Colby Munson, Keith Rollman, Hayden Smith, Ericka Staples
Camera Hugh Gentry, Bill Paris
GLOBe Steve Lawrence
With support from Billabong, Tenth Millennium
Steve Lawrence reports that, despite ocean conditions that made an at-sea landing and takeoff unsafe, our journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (9/18/09) was a great success. We’ll have a detailed post from Steve on Monday. For now, he reports that when the Billabong seaplane “strafed” 5-8 mile stretches of the southern tip of the Garbage Patch from an altitude of 30 to 50 feet, he and his colleagues witnessed an endless stream of debris that ranged from plastic bottles and plastic bags to basketballs and milk crates.
To all those who’ve been following this story: thanks very much for your patience and support. See you Monday when we’ll also have an opportunity to salute everyone on the plane as well as those whose energy, ideas, and all-important funding made the trip possible.
Hat Tip: Steve Munson – a larger-than-life environmentalist/entrepreneur whose personal energy is sufficient to light a fair-sized city.
Hat Tip: Hayden Smith who captains the Waitemata Harbour Clean Up Trusts vessel, MV Phil Warren, and helps remove rubbish from the Auckland, New Zealand harbour every day.
Today is the day! After months of planning and co-ordination, our team is off to the gyre. Filmmaker Steve Lawrence and crew have departed Hawaii aboard the Billabong seaplane and on are their way to the heart of the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” – a Texas-sized “toxic soup” where more than two million pounds of plastic debris are caught in a gigantic vortex of currents. This man-made disaster has caused the death of hundreds of thousands of seabirds and marine animals, and as the latest research indicates, has lead to the contamination of human food chains.
On today’s historic journey, the GreenLandOceanBlue team and an international consortium of concerned individuals will rendezvous with Captain Charles Moore on the research vessel Alguita. They will spend the day documenting the garbage patch and interviewing the Alguita researchers in order to better understand the devastating effect of plastic pollution on the world’s oceans. Upon Steve’s return, the first Plastic Pacific film project will begin production. Stay tuned!
C21stSM, originally uploaded by uberschnapp.
Latest news from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: researchers are finding that jellyfish are eating the small pieces of plastic, and they in turn arevbeing eaten by larger fish, such as salmon and tuna. In other words, we’ve not only polluted the ocean with plastic but now we run the risk of being poisoned from the fish that ingest it.
GREENLANDOCEANBLUE is flying to the GPGP this Wednesday aboard the Billabong seaplane. Stay tuned for details.
Hat Tip: eastbayexpress
Plastic Pacific: greenlandoceanblue’s Excellent Journey, 9/15/09
On Tuesday, September 15th, film director and greenlandoceanblue co-founder, Steve Lawrence will fly from Hawaii via seaplane, the Billabong Clipper, with a group of planet-caring souls to an area of the Pacific known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Once there, the group will experience the environment first hand as they join the ocean research vessel Alguita, captained by Charles Moore – the man who discovered this once Texas-sized soup of plastic a decade ago.
Lawrence, who directed Disney’s recent X Games 3D, will produce a diary of the journey on film which greenlandoceanblue hopes can become the centerpiece of a global lesson plan to help educate students and the media about the growing problem of plastic waste worldwide.
On their flight to the Garbage Patch, the group will also be assigned the task of noting ocean debris with GPS units and the data they collect will be used to help NOAA scientists involved in at-sea detection and removal of large amounts of debris.
Credits: For more information about greenlandoceanblue, please visit www.greenlandoceanblue.com and for information about Capt. Charles Moore and Algalita Marine Research Foundation, visit, www.algalita.org.
Thank you, Billabong (www.billabong.com)
Photo Hat Tip: Splash & Play Seaplane available for purchase here.
SOME FACTS ABOUT BOTTLED WATER:
90% of the cost of bottled water is due to the bottle itself.
Well over 20 billion single-serving plastic bottles go to the dump per year in America from bottled water (not including soda).
Bottling and shipping water are the least energy efficient methods ever used to supply water.
Although it can be easy and convenient to pick up bottled beverage products, the end cost to the environment is staggering.
Namaste: greenupgrader.com
The world’s first Plastic Bag Free Day will be on the 12th September 2009. Leave plastic bags at the checkout, help to make your town Plastic Bag Free or join in the celebrations at town’s that have already stopped using plastic bags. You could also write to shops and supermarkets asking them to support the day. For more information, visit adoptabeach.org.uk.
Sea turtles can easily mistake floating plastic bags for jellyfish. As a result, they eat them and die from choking or simply from being unable to eat. A single dead turtle discovered near Hawaii had more than 1000 pieces of plastic in its stomach including a comb, a toy truck wheel, and nylon rope.
Learn why all of the world’s marine turtles are either endangered or threatened with extinction at panda.org.
Namaste: Bag Monster & seaturtle.org
Albatross adults fly thousands of miles in search of food for their young and often bring back plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by mistake.
In this inset photo you can see what was found in the stomach of just one dead Laysan albatross chick (photographers: David Liittschwager & Susan Middleton).
Namaste: dailymail.co.uk
Learn more about the world’s biggest garbage dump here. Coming soon: details about our own journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Researchers Head to Great Pacific Garbage Patch (blippitt.com)
Crocodile fish tangled in discarded net, originally uploaded by Debby Ng, Hantu Blogger.
Ghost fishing is the term for abandoned or lost fishing gear that keeps killing marine life for days, months, or even years after it vanishes.
A new United Nations report calls for more attention to the source. Most of the gear is made of plastic, and most of it comes from ships. And it is, of course, against the law to dump plastic at sea—specifically, it violates the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL).
The report recommends solutions aimed at prevention, mitigation and cure.
That translates to 1) reducing the likelihood of fishing gear being lost or dumped at sea 2) promoting biodegradability to make plastics less of a problem and 3) making it easier to track and recover lost gear. For details, click here.
Frozen In Time, originally uploaded by Lanamaniac.
Make 18 minutes and 16 seconds. When you’re sure you can spare them, watch the following video – Monday’s only post. Don’t let anything or anyone interrupt you.
Every year, the Ocean Conservancy sponsors an International Coastal Cleanup. Last year, volunteers collected more than 6.8 million pounds of trash. As they cleaned up trash, they recorded 11.4 million items from cigarette butts to fast food wrappers to cast-off appliances. Cleanups were conducted on ocean and waterway shorelines, as well as underwater by 10,606 divers and onboard watercraft by 1,236 boaters.
For details, visit www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=icc_home.
A “floating landfill, made up of plastic trash is swirling in a convergence zone about 1,000 miles west of California and 1,000 miles north of the Hawaiian Islands.” The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is said to be twice the size of Texas. The sun’s UV rays turn the pastic brittle, much like they would crack the vinyl on a car roof. They break it down into small pieces and, in some cases, into particles as fine as dust, which are ingested by marine fauna. Toxicity from such plastic pollutants seeps into the ocean water and thus into our food chain.
GreenLandOceanBlue is in the process of fundraising for a film titled, Plastic Pacific, in which filmmakers Mike Prickett and Steve Lawrence will join Captain Charles Moore (who discovered the Garbage Patch 12 years ago) and a team of world-renowned scientists, journalists, and creative artists on a voyage to explore this emerging debacle and highlight the need for waste management worldwide.
For more information about Plastic Pacific, please continue to our blog. For general information about the GPGP, visit http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org.
