Download 1 Scientists Set Sail for First Global Study of “Plastic Soup” at Sea

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Zan Dubin Scott
Office: (310) 392-1130
Cell: (310) 383-0956
Scientists Set Sail for First Global Study of “Plastic Soup” at Sea
Plastic Marine Pollution is Growing Global Problem
ST. THOMAS, U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS—Are all the world’s oceans filling with plastic pollution? Marine
scientists set sail on Jan. 8, 2010 for the transatlantic, launching the first global study of the plastic marine
pollution that’s widely known as prevalent only in the North Pacific Ocean as the “Great Pacific Garbage
Patch.”
The study’s maiden voyage, from St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands through the Sargasso Sea, is part of
the 5 Gyres Project, which will launch a second sail across the South Atlantic in August. Participating in
and directing the project are researchers Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins, who have worked with
Captain Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF), documenting the
growing accumulation of plastic pollution in the North Pacific Gyre.
“This is a global problem, we’re seeing evidence of plastic pollution everywhere in the world and it’s
getting worse,” says Moore, who appeared in January on “The Colbert Report” to discuss the problem he
first put on the map.
Eriksen and Cummins, who married in June, will work with AMRF to deepen their previous research
focus, which has been to quantify floating plastics, including micro-plastic fragments consumed by fish.
Now they’ll look at how this flotsam affects those fish to better understand the human effects of what the
Los Angeles Times calls “one of the fastest growing segments of civilization’s toxic waste stream.”
“Plastic particles at sea act as magnets for chemicals like DDT, PCBs, flame retardants and other
pollutants,” Cummins says. “The Five Gyres Project is now working to advance our previous research
with targeted testing to determine if these chemicals accumulate in fish, travel up the food chain and end
up on our dinner plates.
“There are five gyres in the world,” Cummins adds, “but plastic pollution isn’t confined to just one. We plan
to gather data from all five.”
The 5 Gyres Project is a collaboration among AMRF, where Eriksen is director of program development,
Livable Legacy and Pangaea Explorations. The project’s title sponsor is Blue Turtle. Pangaea
Explorations is providing the 72-foot sloop Sea Dragon on which the couple will sail to collect samples of
the ocean’s surface, seafloor sediment and fish for stomach content and tissue analysis. Other sailors
have volunteered to contribute to their research with borrowed 5 Gyres Project equipment.
Follow the Sea Dragon’s progress through GPS technology provided by Blue Turtle.
Last spring, Eriksen and Cummins completed a 2,000-mile bike ride to raise awareness of the problem in
the North Pacific Gyre, through which Eriksen had sailed aboard AMRF’s JUNKraft made of 15,000
plastic bottles. (The ocean plastic problem has been referred to as a Garbage Patch but is far more
diffuse than a single “patch,” which is why Eriksen and Cummins call it plastic soup.)
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During their six-week transatlantic journey—the first of its kind—the couple will stop in Bermuda to lecture
and to meet with U.S. Consul General Grace Shelton. On Jan. 28 they will set sail for the Azores through
the Sargasso Sea, an elongated region in the middle of the North Atlantic surrounded by ocean currents
which form another oceanic gyre. They expect to return to Santa Monica by mid-February.
In August, they will cross the South Atlantic Gyre, which stretches from Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town,
South Africa. This is expected to be the first such voyage in some 30 years in the Southern Hemisphere.
Because plastic pollution at sea cannot be cleaned up by any practical means, society must stop the
problem at its source, the researchers stress. They advocate legislation requiring companies to take
responsibility for recovery and reuse of their products, including economic incentives to promote recovery
and bans on single-use disposable products. Responsible legislation will also create tremendous
opportunity for smart, innovative alternative products.
“We can’t recycle our way out of this mess, nor can we clean up what’s already out there,” Eriksen says.
“We’re not looking at an accumulation of large chunks of plastic but a thin, diffuse soup of microparticles.”
While potential human health effects of marine plastic remain unknown, scientists already estimate that
nearly half of all seabird species, all sea turtle species, and 22 species of marine mammals are harmed or
killed by plastic waste, either from ingestion, entanglement or strangulation before the debris has been
broken down into tiny fragments.
Eriksen and Cummins will maintain a blog about their trip at 5gyres.org. They will follow their second
Atlantic voyage with a yearlong public awareness project titled “The Last Straw.” This will include a 2,000mile East Coast cycling-lecture tour and construction in Paris of a boat from 250,000 plastic straws. In
that boat, to be called “STRA,” after the RA expeditions by Thor Heyerdahl of the late 1960s, they will sail
the Seine River and cross the English Channel.
5 Gyre Project’s title sponsor Blue Turtle is a San Francisco-based membership organization seeking
lasting, comprehensive solutions to polluted oceans worldwide through education, source elimination and
clean up. Pangaea Explorations, another major sponsor, is dedicated to discovering ground truths about
the environment, engaging people in environmental issues, and teaching the next generation to respect
and protect their environment.
Key additional sponsorship is provided by Ecousable, Quiksilver Foundation, Surfrider Foundation, Keen
Footwear, Patagonia and Aquapac.
Download photographs of Eriksen and Cummins aboard the Sea Dragon, plastic particles taken from a
fish’s stomach, and the 2008 JUNKraft voyage. Media Contact: Zan Dubin Scott, (310) 383-0956;
[email protected].
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