There isn't a sign that says, "Enter Garbage Patch Here". There is no island of trash you happen upon that makes you realize the problem is so extensive. It's more like how it looks and feels when you enter an area of smog; gradually it creeps up on you and every glance you take you can't help seeing its presence. It surrounds you until finally, like a disease, it produces enough signs to indicate its adverse affects on all it comes in contact with.
When we started from Oahu, for the first few days sailing in the trade winds, you would be hard pressed to spot with your eyes some form of trash floating in the water. I was amazed at the open space and the crystal blue waters as far as the eye could see (about 3.5 miles). I can stare out an airplane window for hours enjoying every cloud and land formation and space in between. I could do the same in the ocean with nothing but sky, water and weather patterns.
But as we moved north and crept east no one had to tell us we were in the North Pacific Gyre or Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). A bottle here, ghosts nets there, a toothbrush floating by; they were all telltale signs we entered the gyre and for the next few days, as we sailed deeper and deeper into the vortex, you'd be hard pressed not to notice the plastic in all shapes and sizes at every distance, pretty much at any moment you looked out onto the surface of the water.
Here is a video from the bow of the Sea Dragon that will give you an idea of how regularly one might see fragments and larger plastic objects floating on the surface.
Not as bad as you thought, or worse? Honestly, my first impression on the first day entering the area of the GPGP was that I expected to see more debris on the surface more frequently. I can't help but think of all that trash running off from rivers into the ocean, from tsunamis as it is carried out to sea, and in general from our species' poor track record of recycling. All that trash floating in a system of circular ocean currents for decades you'd think would leave a more visible impression, right? But to put things into perspective, when you are out there sailing in the middle of the ocean you realize just how vast a space it is. And of course you have to take into consideration that not all the debris floats on the surface. Some of it will slowly sink to the deepest trenches on earth. And then there's this thought; plastics as we understand them today were invented in 1907 and produced on a large-scale on assembly lines in the 1950's. Scientists currently estimate that plastics will not degrade for at least 500 years. That means that every single piece of plastic that has ever been produced in this world still exists in some form today. During its lifespan it can only break down and get smaller and smaller. Then take into account the effects of erosion from wave action, wind, and UV light in the middle of the ocean and you have the decomposition of megaplastics into microplastics which we can't see from the bow of a boat. And there my friends is my segue into what it REALLY looks like out there in the GPGP. If it isn't bad enough floating in larger forms on the surface, then you have to imagine the insidious issue of trillions of pieces of microplastics in our oceans.
The manta trawl is a net system used for sampling the surface of the ocean. It resembles a manta ray, with metal wings and a broad mouth. The .33mm nylon net collects the smallest of materials at the surface and then once on board, the crew separates the organic from the inorganic material revealing the amount of microplastics collected in our 30 minute trawls. Below is a video collage from several of our manta trawls aboard the Sea Dragon. The views are from a hand-held camera, a chest Go-Pro and a Go-Pro attached to the manta-trawl mouth during collection.
Two classifications of microplastics currently exist. Primary microplastics are any plastic fragments or particles that are already 5.0 mm in size or less before entering the environment. These include microfibers from clothing, microbeads, and plastic pellets (also known as nurdles). Secondary microplastics are created from the degradation of larger plastic products once they enter the environment through natural weathering processes. Such sources of secondary microplastics include water and soda bottles, fishing nets, and plastic bags. What you see in the pan in the image above is a mix of both primary and secondary plastics. Of the five trawls it represents the middle the Gyre that we explored and an area of greatest density of microplastics. My impression of this collection is its odd beauty in shapes and colors (come on, I'm an artist) and the sheer quantity or count of individual items. We covered maybe two miles during the 30 minute trawl. To me, this is a lot of plastic that can do a lot of harm.
The final impression I'd like to leave is that of how all this plastic on and below the surface of the ocean affects marine life? First, they might get entangled in the ghost nets/fishing ropes and often die as a result of not being able to escape. Second, animals that live and migrate through an area like the GPGP confuse the plastic in the ocean as food. That can have toxic to fatal consequences. They ingest it which will cause malnutrition, starvation and possibly ruptured organs. Their bodies are not only missing out on nutrients, but they are absorbing all the chemicals that are found in plastics. A diagram like the one below shows how we are ALL feeding on it:
There are many images on the internet that show the reality of how plastics are destroying sea life. The first I remember seeing was of a sea turtle with its head and front flippers entangled in a mess of ropes and netting. But the single image that is engraved in my mind that shows the most horrific affects of our own garbage in the oceans was shot by one of our crew members and my bunk-mate aboard the Sea Dragon. It is an epic image that has set in motion a lot of awareness and action.
There is nothing fake or staged about this image. Chris Jordan is a filmmaker and photographer who went to Midway Island almost a decade ago and found a very sad story to tell, one of death and destruction by plastic; momma birds feeding their young plastic and in the process killing them. Chris has returned to Midway several times in the past few years and created the documentary film, Albatross. See the video trailer below which is hauntingly beautiful and indeed painful to watch, but we hope it will set in motion more action and education that works to approach this problem from many perspectives and get our species to change our behavior.
For decades plastics have added comfort, convenience and safety to our lives. From how we sit in chairs, drink our beverages to using IVs in hospitals. We rely on plastic because it is durable and cheap. We live in a throw-away society and I believe more and more people are coming to realize the adverse affects of this behavior. I hope this blog post set in motion something in your heart and will make you stop to think how you personally CAN make a difference by changing your relationship with plastic. I look forward to talking with many MUN students around the globe this year about this issue and listen to the ways they want to make a difference. So far here is what they have come up with.
1. Reduce your use of single-use plastics
2. Recycle properly
3. Participate in (or organize) a beach or river cleanup
4. Support bans
5. Avoid products containing microbeads
6. Spread the word
7. Support organizations addressing plastic pollution
Maybe you can take a pledge to focus on one of these in your life. I believe every well thought out initiative, pursued with consistency and conviction (and creativity), can make a positive difference.
I hope as I have more conversations with students I will create a future post that sheds a very positive light on their action and initiatives that shows just how many "outside the box" ideas they have that are changing our world for the better.
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