Following Algalita's "Junk" to the North Pacific Gyre
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 04.13.08
Everybody seems to want a piece of the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," a huge pile of plastic and trash (twice the size of the continental U.S.) floating in the Pacific Ocean, these days: from Planet Green's own Summer Rayne Oakes recently accompanying researchers on an expedition there to VBS.tv's captivating 12-part series on the massive trash vortex (appropriately entitled "Toxic: Garbage Island").
The Algalita Marine Research Foundation, whose scientists helped expose and study the floating garbage patch, is embarking on a new mission to spread the word: one that it hopes to accomplish onboard "Junk," a raft made out of 20,000 plastic bottles.
Six staff members, led by Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal, will be making the 2,100 mile trip from Los Angeles to Hawaii aboard the raft in an effort to "bring further public attention to the plastic marine debris issue." They are currently raising funds by having people "sponsor" bottles for $5 a bottle; the bottles, which will contain messages from students and individuals around the country, will be delivered to the governors of California, Washington and Oregon, which all recently pledged their support for more robust ocean protection legislation.
You can follow the crew's preparations and expedition on the AMRF's The Junk blog. You can also read more about the project, and Eriksen's objectives, here.
Via ::The Junk: The bottle collection begins (blog)
See also: ::VBS.tv Sails Out to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, ::Pacific Trash Vortex Could Signify Future of Our Oceans
Schwarzenegger Declares State of Emergency as Salmon Fishing Closes
|
Water Weirding: American Southwest on Uncertain Ground
|
Twice the size of the continental U.S.? Really? Last I heard it wa as big as Texas.
Ok. Who else got nausea watching that video. Please stop popping around the screen like that... oh, and thanks for the info. The Gyre will shame us all.
I heard it was twice the size of Texas...
Everytime I read about this thing it gets bigger. Next time it will be twice the size of the moon.
Actually I heard, its twice the size of the ocean...;-)
Err wait that doesn't work ...
seriously It is more or less the size of Connecticut, twice Texas would take up half the USA, think about it, its not that far to Hawaii , something that big would not fit...
In any event its Way WAY too big however big it is.
I wonder if there any way to clear it out, IE fish that junk out of the water and recycle it?
Yea, I'm willing to invest for anybody who wants to trawl that POS for plastic to recycle. Hell, as oil becomes more expensive, plastic will too--that might be horrifically toxic gold just floating out there.
You'd think it shouldn't be too hard to recycle some of it now, it should have been thoroughly cleaned in the ocean ;-)
Unfortunately plastic does photo degrade, so much of this plastic ends up in small bits floating about, and ends up eaten by marine life (accidentally I assume)
I imagine it would be nearly impossible to collect these small pieces, but it seems like somebody needs to start collecting the larger bits of trash, regardless of if there is a monetary gain to it.