Of Plankton and Plastic in the Pacific
On June 10, 2009 Captain Charles Moore set off on Algalita's Oceanographic Research Vessel for the first leg of a four month expedition from California to past the Northern Hawaiian Islands to test for plastic marine debris.
Captain Moore discovered the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch, known as the the Pacific Gyre, and he is continuing his research to help all of us understand that the rapid rise in global plastic production is leading to a rise in plastic pollution and its devastating effects on our oceans and our lives.
Over the next few weeks, I will be posting emails directly from Captain Moore so we can follow his journey and better understand what we are doing to our oceans.
Below is Captain Moore's most recent email describing the ship and its crew, a change in route and the ever present plastic debris:
Day 5
June 15, 2009
Dear Laurie,
We are on the 6th day of our trip and while the weather has been great for sunbathing, with only a few rain squalls, we have already had to change course due to weather patterns. This has turned out to be a great opportunity to study an unexplored area of the ocean. And, as you can see in the photos, the plastic has been unavoidable at every turn.
Our 25 ton (that's small for a ship) research vessel, Alguita, is a nimble and economical platform for oceanographic research far from shore.
Her design makes for easy operation by the volunteer crew, who rarely get much time aboard before putting out to sea. Without the help of volunteer citizen scientists, we could never access and sample the remote reaches of the vast Pacific Ocean where our plastic trash travels to areas of accumulation, some known and some yet to be discovered.
Our current voyage, leg one of a 3 leg summer program, is designed to access one such accumulation zone near the International Dateline, north of Hawaii at about the latitude of Los Angeles. We had hoped to be able to take a generally direct route from LA/Long Beach out to the dateline, but, as mentioned above, the great North Pacific High got in our way.
This relatively stable atmospheric phenomenon spirals debris clockwise into the center where there is little wind. Since we have to sail to save fuel, we can't go through the high on our way west, it's too calm. So we turned south and are now headed towards the Big Island of Hawaii. There is another interesting accumulation zone southwest of the Big Island that we tried to sample winter before last, but were driven back by strong winds and seas. This unexpected opportunity to access the area is actually most welcome.
Each day we have seen and captured items of plastic debris.
Yesterday it was a Japanese fishing float, and today we did our first zooplankton sampling with the manta trawl. Unfortunately, that also means plastic particle sampling, as every manta trawl we have done, not matter where in the Pacific, has had plastic particles in it along with the zooplankton. (see photo).
We have not sampled this area before and it is well south of the so called Eastern Garbage Patch, yet it is replete with plastic fragments and bits of line.
We will do another manta trawl this afternoon, with a camera attached to the front to observe how effectively it samples. We will then have our second blue water dive in water that is beginning to be tropical.
Best to all from the Captain of the ORV Alguita at (27 29.3N 127 00.2W)
PHOTOS:
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To get to the larger environmental point in the headline
Plankton blooms in the north Pacific are of record size, they are helped by more open warmer
water- and like all green plant life- they love extra Co2.
Plankton is in turn the very foundation of the oceans food chain- extending to fish- birds-seals etc
So garbage is ugly and offensive to us humans, especially us wealthy privileged ones, and it may be intuitive to think that it offends 'mother earth' but in fact nature isn't human. Nature overwhelmingly thrives on human waste (Co2, landfills, household, agricultural), which is used as a food source and shelter. , this is what life looks for whatever the source
These patches of refuse that become lumped in the ocean are havens for all kinds of creatures that like to live near the surface and otherwise have nothing to cling to- and they in turn provide for larger ecosystems. (Notice the life in the picture clinging to the plastic ball that this guy is ‘helping‘”
Personally I don't care, I sail a lot myself- clean it up, re-freeze the north pacific, take away their food and shelter- but bear in mind this is all for your sense of aesthetics, not natures welfare!
It is equivalent to cleaning up a peasants yard by paving his untidy vegetable garden with a nice eco-friendly synthetic patio deck so we don’t have to be offended by his mess.
So all those birds that die of starvation with their bellies stuffed with pens and Bic lighters really don't know how good they have it, eh?
My wife and I love birds, we have lots of feeders that they live around all winter- quite often
one will be killed flying into the window, or by a cat, maybe some have even choked on an odd bit of plastic we left around- and sure that's all our fault.
The point is the same- Birds overwhelmingly thrive off human activity and waste- just visit a landfill or fishing port, you are not helping them by cleaning these things up for them, it just appeals to a human sense of tidyness and righteousness.
If you really wanted to help birds, campaign to stop windmills- for a bird- these provide all the danger without any advantage.
It is estimated that the northern Pacific area is twice the size of Texas.
1. It's not "Algalita's Oceanographic Research Vessel," it's "Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita."
2. The Pacific Gyre is the name of the swirling current in that part of the ocean, not the name of the garbage patch in that gyre.
See R.W. Sanders's Profile
This may seem trivial in the overall scheme of things, but I live very near Pebble Beach. A few years ago, I noticed the golfers making a game of throwing their golf balls into the ocean. Having just viewed a TV special about our new marine sanctuary off the Hawaiian Islands, I became very upset. You see, this sanctuary is hundreds of miles from the nearest golf course, yet they found golf balls in the stomachs of many sea animals that had died there. I began my own campaign by email to any and every golf entity that I could think of, to please stop throwing these things that sea life interprets as eggs into our oceans. I'm not sure that I have had any effect, but I did notice on this year's TV coverage that there were no shots of players committing murder by flinging balls into the ocean. Enough end up there due to errant shots, which is different though still harmful. By the way, I was a golfer for most of my life, I can no longer play or I would be a golfer today. I'm not sure that I could bring myself to hit a shot over the ocean, though. I might just take the penalty and play on. After all, what is two shots compared to the death of an otter.
Nobody cares. Iraq, Iran, economy, swine flu, healthcare.
Please move on.
Yes, I care.
Ten years ago I vacationed about 20 miles south of Cancun.
A gardener went out every morning and raked up all the plastic on "our" stretch of beach.
Beyond that the beach looked like a total garbage dump. You could name any given plastic item (cigarette lighter, tampon applicator, six pack ring) and within 20 ' find one. Or several.
In 30 years or less I will be dead. It will be your kids and grandkids who never see a pristine white sand beach that isn't covered with garbage.
Assuming God doesn't get pissed about what we're doing to his oceans in the mean time.
I care about all these things, have even participated in some of them in ways, and I still have room in my heart for nature. The human mind is an amazing and complex thing, able to keep track of many different issues at once. Give it a shot sometime. ;-)
Thank you. this is a disgrace ( if that's not too mild a word for this mess) and we must know more about it. I will be watching for your posts
What is this four month expedition's carbon footprint?
depends on the cost/benefit analysis. there's no such thing as a free lunch.
There's the side benefit of getting people aware of the Garbage Patch and encouraging political action on biodegradables. It's worth it. I guarantee you that no matter how much carbon footprint the expedition has, it pales in comparison to the damage done by the Garbage Patch. If people remain ignorant, it'll only get worse.
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