Algalita Marine Research Blog

Sea Dragon under sail during our last expedition to The North Atlantic Gyre.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEMedia Contact: Zan Dubin Scott(310) 383-0956zan@zdscommunications.com

 

Pioneering Researchers Launch World’s 1st South Atlantic Ocean Plastic-Pollution Study 

Pro Surfers Join Voyage to Advance Research on Impact of Floating Pollution on Human Health & Marine Life

SANTA MONICA, CA; OCT. 27--Researchers will embark on the world’s first voyage of its kind on Nov. 8 to show that every ocean on the globe is polluted with plastic garbage harming marine wildlife and potentially threatening human health. The 5 Gyres Institute, collaborating with Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF) and Pangaea Explorations, is leading this expedition.

The 5 Gyres team, lead by co-founders Marcus Eriksen, PhD and Anna Cummins, will sail from Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town, South Africa on the first transatlantic Southern Hemisphere plastic-pollution research trip. The husband-and-wife team, overseeing a 13-member crew of researchers, journalists and others for the first global study of the problem, want the world to know that the scourge is not confined to a single mythical “Texas-size garbage patch.”

“You can’t cross an ocean today without finding plastic pollution,” says Cummins, co-founder of 5 Gyres Institute, a Santa Monica, CA-based nonprofit organization.

A gyre is a rotating system of ocean currents where floating debris accumulates. Eriksen and Cummins plan to produce the first comprehensive snapshot analysis of plastic pollution in each of the globe’s five gyres. Building on AMRF’s discovery of plastic pollution in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, the 5 Gyres crew has discovered garbage patches in the North Atlantic Gyre and the Indian Ocean Gyre. No other researchers have been to as many gyres.

Two renowned professional surfers, James Pribram and Mary Osborne, will join the voyage to help raise awareness. “My goal is to share my experience with the world in becoming a spokesperson against plastic waste,” says Pribram, a.k.a. the ECO-Warrior and O’Neill ambassador.

“We want to show people wherever we sail that the problem contaminates their international waters,” Eriksen says. “They cannot say, ‘Well, that’s across the ocean, what does that have to do with my country?’ “

5 Gyres’ Rio-to-Cape Town voyage will be aboard Pangaea Explorations’s racing sloop, Sea Dragon.  In addition to sailing through gyres, the team aims to advance its research into whether humans are being harmed by eating fish that have ingested plastic debris contaminated with persistent organic pollutants such as DDT and PCBs. PhD candidate Chelsea Rochman of UC Davis will lead this research. Cummins has already found trace elements of such toxins in her body. The crew will also analyze seawater for the same pollutants.

The Sea Dragon crew will be communicating via blogs with more than 1,850 Los Angeles school children through AMRF’s Ship-2-Shore Education program. Charles Moore, AMRF’s founder, first put the Great Pacific Garbage Patch on the map. 

Eriksen and Cummins plan to sail across the South Pacific Gyre—the fifth subtropical gyre—in March 2011.

5 Gyres is partnering with the United Nations Environmental Program’s Safe Planet campaign and Eriksen and Cummins will be speaking at AMRF’s 2011 Plastics Are Forever International Youth Summit and Training Program.

The Sea Dragon’s crew: Clive Cosby, skipper; Dale John Selvam, first mate; Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins, 5 Gyres Institute co-founders; Stiv Wilson, 5 Gyres communications director; Chelsea Rochman, PhD candidate; Bonnie Monteleone, marine scientist; James Pribram, pro surfer; Mary Osborne, pro surfer and Patagonia Ambassador; Michael Lutman, filmmaker; Jody Lemmon, filmmaker; Rich Sundance Owen, Environmental Cleanup Coalition; Mary Maxwell, interested citizen.

5 Gyres’s Rio-to-Cape Town sponsors include Chaco, Quiksilver and Ecousable.

About 5 Gyres Institute: 5 Gyres Institute is a nonprofit organization committed to meaningful change through research and education. 5 Gyres disseminates its message and findings through national lecture tours and raises awareness of ocean plastic pollution through voyages including that aboard JUNKraft, the boat built in 2008 of 15,000 plastic bottles. The organization’s collaboration with Algalita Marine Research Foundation and Pangaea Explorations provide it with a marine laboratory and research vessel, respectively.  After studying the five subtropical gyres, 5 Gyres will monitor these vortexes through Traveling Trawl Program voyages which loan research equipment to volunteer “citizen scientists.”

PHOTOS FOR MEDIA: Please use these photographs of Eriksen and Cummins on previous voyages, of plastic particles taken from a fish’s stomach, and of James Pribram and Mary Osborne. Media Contact: Zan Dubin Scott, (310) 383-0956; zan@zdscommunications.com.

Follow our journey:  twitter.com/5gyres

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Free iphone app.-   5 Gyres.  

Zan Dubin Scott

ZDS Communications for 5 Gyres

O:  (310) 392-1130  C:  (310) 383-0956

F:  (310 392-1318

http://www.zdscommunications.com

 

In just a few short weeks, 5 Gyres will set sail for the South Atlantic -  the first Transatlantic expedition studying plastic in the Southern Hemisphere. Organizing the personnel, logistics, and funding for a major expedition is no easy feat, so we're extremely grateful to the individuals and companies that believe in our mission. Like Life Without Plastic!When we announced our "Sponsor a trawl" program months ago, Life Without Plastic was the first group to step forward with an enthusiastic "count us in!". Run by a Canadian couple that were united through their fascination with plastic (Marcus and I can relate) Life Without Plastic offers many wonderful alternatives to disposable plastic - from baby products to food storage to non-plastic toys. A great resource for a zero waste holiday season...Their contribution will fund one, specific research "trawl", the device we use to skim the oceans surface to collect samples for lab analysis. The lab work is a painstaking, tedious affair - a single sample can take up to a week of patient work to process - but this research is the backbone upon which important legislation and policy is based. Thank you Jay and Chantal for your dedication to raising awareness and promoting solutions - we truly appreciate your work and your support!

Recently, 5 Gyres co-director Anna Cummins had the opportunity to talk plastic pollution at TEDx. Great resource for understanding the scope of our work. 

The Waste to Waves exhibit on plastic pollution is now in the St. Louis Science Center this weekend for SciFest.  Thousands of visitors poured in to hear from scientists, educators and entertainers talk science.  The Bottle Rocket, which once floated 2000 miles down the Mississippi River on 232 2-liter plastic bottles, is now high and dry on the 3rd floor.Marcus Eriksen, Anna Cummins and Marieta Francis were on hand to tell the public about the impact of plastic pollution on the world's oceans, via our watersheds.   "Remember, plastic waste here in St. Louis can easily float down the street, downstream, down the river to the ocean," Marieta said, adding, "...and the ocean is downhill from everywhere."Marcus and Anna gave presentations to the public.  Anna explained to visitors what it's like to sail across oceans, while Marcus described the life of a modern Huckleberry Finn.

What would happen if the Bottle Rocket floated out to sea? The Bottle Rocket, a raft fabricated from 232 2-liter bottles, rolled up to the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium for the second time. In 2003 I paddled here to take a break from rafting the Mississippi. I stayed for a week and talked with visitors about what it's like to raft the river. Now, 7 years later, it's the same conversation, but I've added what I've learned about plastic.

So would happen if my 2000-mile journey had not ended in the Gulf of Mexico? The Bottle Rocket would have drifted into the Loop Current, a mini-gyre in the Gulf. From there the Gulf Stream, a river of warm water that feeds the Atlantic Ocean, would have taken the Bottle Rocket around Florida, along the east coast of North America and into the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre. It would sit there for years, while the metal oxidized and wood decomposed, leaving the remaining plastic to persist. In 2010 we crossed the North Atlantic to study plastic pollution. We possibly would have found the bottle caps from the Bottle Rocket still floating in the gyre.

You can see the Bottle Rocket and Algalita's exhibit on plastic pollution at the St. Louis Science Center during the weekend of Oct. 15-18.

Sometimes in life it's good to stop and gauge where you are, who you're with, and what you're doing.  It's a kind of measure of your life passing by, and brings some clarity about value.  In the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean I stood silent on the deck of the Sea Dragon, scanned the sea and the 5 Gyres crew hawling in another trawl, and thought about the significance of finding another garbage patch in the world.  A BBC mic recorded everything.  Please listen in  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v1qtn.

On the plane last week to Sitka, Alaska for a round of presentations, I flipped through Curtis Ebbesmeyer's book Flotsametrics and dreamed of someday finding my own beach bound plastic ducky. 18 years ago, after a container ship accident dumped some 70,000 plastic bath toys into the North Pacific, eastbound currents deposited hundreds of yellow duckies on beaches in Sitka. The curiously cute incident attracted the attention of local reports, as well as Seattle-based Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who set out to investigate how these bath toys traveled oceanic currents. A media sensation erupted over the iconic "friendly floaters", and the investigation still continues today. I wondered if I'd find one, perhaps on Coastal Cleanup Day. I wanted one... We'd been invited to Sitka by Lynn Wilbur, Aquarium Director for the Sitka Sound Science Center, to give 14 presentations at the local schools - Mt. Edgecombe, Sitka High, and Blatchely Middle Schools. The students, as they generally do, impressed and recharged me - one group had even made a wall sized map of the world's ocean currents!                                  At my final presentation at the Science Center, I recounted the plastic ducky incident. There must have been something in my tone of voice, a hint of longing perhaps, as afterward, they presented me with a small, weathered yellow ducky - an original from the infamous spill! It made my month.                              We spent the last day celebrating Coastal Cleanup Day on a small, woody island, the pouring rain a non-issue for hardy Alaskans..                                                     Pristine from a distance, the island yielded an astounding amount of plastic trash - buried in the high tide line. Lynn showed me a clipboard full that she scraped out of a small square foot area:And my find of a pen with Japanese lettering was of particular interest to local anthropologist Nancy Yaw Davis, who I had read about in Ebbesmeyer's book. She immediately gathered a group of students around to translate with her - many of them study Japanese in school.                                                                                                                 Regardless of where it originated from,  the pen, the plastic ducky, and the amount trash found on this "remote" island all underscore how connected we are by ocean currents - the veins and arteries of our blue planet.  Its hard to leave a place as stunning as Sitka, but I'm quite sure 5 Gyres will return next year, to build a plastic boat, trawl in the local, seasonal gyre - and maybe find a frog and a beaver to keep my ducky company.