25 October, 2010 — Plastic pollution in the oceans is a serious problem. It accumulates, degrades, absorbs and releases chemicals, and kills ocean wildlife. Did you know that approximately 80% of the garbage in the world’s oceans comes from land-based sources? And about half of this consists of petroleum-based plastics that have not been properly disposed of by consumers. Life Without Plastic is honoured to be teaming up with the 5 Gyres Institute, a dynamic, cutting edge research and exploration non-profit organization that is tackling the problem of oceanic plastic pollution head on by undertaking research voyages in the world’s oceans. In a few weeks, they embark on thefirst ever South Atlantic Ocean study of plastic pollution.
5 Gyres Co-Founders Anna Cummins and Markus Eriksen after a Bermuda Beach cleanup
Photo credit: 5 Gyres & Algalita Marine Research Foundation
“5 Gyres” refers to the five major oceanic gyres in the world: North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic and Indian Ocean. But what is a gyre, you ask? It’s essentially a massive, slowly rotating whirlpool of ocean currents that accumulates the plastic debris in an enormous concentrated area. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? The research arm of 5 Gyres is the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which has done extensive research in the North Pacific Ocean revealing that this gyre contains approximately 3.5 million tons of garbage and that the plastic to sea plankton ratio is about 6 to 1. If you haven’t heard about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and even if you have, please mark your calender for the TEDxGreatPacificGarbagePatch being organized by the Plastic Pollution Coalition on November 6, 2010 – more on this in the sidebar column on the left.
The 5 Gyres Institute is spearheading plastic pollution research within and beyond the Pacific Ocean. Their next voyage beginning in a few weeks will take them across the South Atlantic Ocean on the first transatlantic expedition studying plastic pollution in the Southern Hemisphere. At Life Without Plastic, a fundamental part of our mission is research, education and activism on plastics issues. Our hat goes off to the folks at 5 Gyres, and their partner organizations, Algalita Marine Research Foundation and Pangaea Exploration. The research they are doing is so important for building awareness about the plastics issue because it makes it real for people all over the world. As 5 Gyres Co-Founder Anna Cummins explains on the 5 Gyres blog, the Life Without Plastic “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.”
To learn more about this issue, take a look at Anna’s recent TEDx talk about plastic in the world’s oceans.
See also the TED talk by Captain Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.