Plastic Bottle Boat

Plastic is forever! Pretty much all of the plastic ever manufactured is still with us. So where does it end up? Certainly a fair amount is dumped in land fills where cities take their trash, but a significant portion makes its way to the ocean. Once there strong currents carry pieces of plastic - large and small - to places in the ocean called gyres, or swirling vortexes of water.

One such location is the North Pacific (Ocean) Subtropical Gyre. A section of the NPSG is called the Eastern Garbage Patch (EGP) which is located about 500 miles off the California coast and is roughly the area of Texas. Essentially the sea becomes a plastic soup, with pieces ranging in size from the head of a pin to fishing gear.

The land based causes of this plastic liquid are manufacturers, fabricators, litter from beaches, and litter from city streets which is carried to the sea by storm and rainwater runoff. The main sources of plastic from the ocean are cargo and passenger ships. And the majority of the types of plastic found there are: low-density polyethylene, expanded styrene (styrofoam), poly propylene, and PET (polyethylene terephthalate).

So a few floating sections of plastic wrap that covered food or shards of styrofoam cups or a plastic bottle here and there shouldn't seem to be a big deal, right? But there are a multitude of negative impacts of these man-made intruders. For example, plastic can kill animal life through entrapment, suffocation, and drowning. In addition, it concentrates persistent organic (defined as containing carbon) pollutants in the food chain. Since fish and shell fish are a major source of food for much of the world's population, the ramifications are enormous. Plastics have been confirmed by researchers to be poisonous to humans and cause irreparable harm including cancer, brain damage, reproductive failure and cardiovascular destruction.

What is the answer? The plastic in the gyre won't go away naturally since it is not biodegradable and so many of the floating chunks are miniscule it would be extraordinarily difficult to wash the seas clean. Ultimately, ending the production of plastic is key to stopping the flow of this dangerous waste stream. Finding substitutes for plastic is imperative for the survival of animal life in the ocean.

In order to draw attention to this urgent issue, two intrepid adventurers and scientists sailed from Long Beach, CA to Honolulu, HI in a 30 foot boat christened 'Junk'. The vessel was made from 15,000 plastic bottles and an old fuselage from a retired Cessna 310 airplane. The purpose of their journey was to raise awareness about the plastic that contaminates our seas.

Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal traveled 2,600 miles in 87 days departing from Long Beach on June 1, 2008 and arriving in Hawaii on August 27. During the tempestuous crossing the two were battered by four hurricanes and were besieged by a slowly sinking raft. Nevertheless, they were still able to obtain 10 ocean samples in order to measure the amount of plastic present along their path. The results of the analysis of these samples were very disturbing as they indicated that there is more plastic by weight in those areas than plankton (small organisms such as algae, protozoans, bacteria, etc. that float or drift in salt or fresh water).

For more information on the landmark voyage by 'Junk' and work by Eriksen and Paschal via the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, please visit www.junkraft.blogspot.com or www.algalita.org.

The photos in this album were made on the day this incredible journey began.