Project Kaisei team talks trash

"My dad pushed me over the side of the boat when I was seven years of age, and thanks to that, I've been exposed to that environment, and have seen my own playground, my own back yard and planet ocean being trashed.  That has to change."

That was Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of the famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau speaking at a press conference Tuesday, on the return of the Kaisei tall ship to the Bay Area.

Cousteau was joined by Project Kaisei founders, scientists, environmentalists and ocean lovers who spent a month in the middle of the ocean at a place called the North Pacific Gyre where tons of plastic trash has collected, and is floating in the sea.  

"We traveled thousands of miles on both vessels and we tested surface samples across that whole distance.  Every single sample we came up with plastic, every single one."

Co-founder Doug Woodring spoke about finding plastic pieces, large, small and minute on their travels to the gyre which is such a remote area that it takes five full days to get there by boat. 

An example of what they found was spread out in front of the audience; ghost fishing nets, chunks of plastic lawn furniture, crates, large containers, a helmet. 

Even scarier, was a small jar (shown at right) that was filled with tiny plastic particles they collected in an hour, the result of breakdown of the larger pieces.  This is the stuff they found in every sample of water taken.

Mary Crowley, founder of Ocean Voyages Institute from which Project Kaisei sprang, spoke movingly about traveling the remote areas of the Pacific decades ago and finding one or two pieces of plastic, and comparing that with what she saw last month.

"I certainly found a very different situation...we found a myriad of types of garbage.  In some of the areas that weren't so congested, maybe we'd see 25 pieces but in other areas we would see three to four hundred pieces of marine debris...When you consider that we were doing this day after day as we cross the ocean, and how much more of an expanse it is, you really realize how much is out there."

Scientists on board also discussed what they found, and lead scientific investigator Dr. Andrea Neal described their "striking observations." 

"We found polymer debris in every single one of our trawls.  Even in the trawls we did just off the coast here in the Farrallon Islands.  That was a very shocking realization for us.  We also recorded a steady state of increase in marine debris as we approached the North Pacific Gyre."

She went on to say that they found marine life ingesting the plastic and marine life hitching a ride on the trash itself.  Neal concluded by stating that "marine debris is the new man-made epidemic."

While the Kaisei research vessel was at sea, it was joined by the research ship New Horizons out of Scripps Institution of Oceanography.  Samples collected by both vessels, will be studied at labs here, including one in Berkeley run by the California Environmental Protection Agency under their Department of Toxic Substances Control.

Dr. Bruce La Belle will head the study there and report back on toxins found as a result of not only the leeching of material from the plastics and other toxins that adhere to the trash like DDT and PCBs, but also on potentially toxic effects produced as the plastic pieces get 'nano-sized.' 

The last item is of particular concern because since  plastic does not biodegrade, it simply breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces. Those tiny pieces are more difficult to find and remove than the larger debris.

After the trash is examined in the lab, Project Kaisei will focus efforts on awareness and clean up.  It's expected that Kaisei's next trip out to sea will be geared towards debris collection efforts.

But if the scope of the problem is as large as members of Project Kaisei assert it is, then it will likely be decades of effort by everybody to restore the sea to health.

"It's our choice.  If we [don't] stop using the ocean as a trash can, if we [don't] stop destroying the coastal habitats," said Cousteau, "If we continue to take more fish than nature produces, we're heading for bankruptcy."  

(photos are by MoreMarin, except those of floating trash, collecting trash and trawl which are courtesy of Project Kaisei)

Comments

[Mom]

If it WILL likely be decades of effort by everybody to restore the sea to health, you better get cracking and start today. Don't we have decades left??? Cheers!

[Justin]

I'm about to have my first kid in December. I do what I can to be eco friendly, but reaading stuff like this is depressing and I feel guilty about day to day life and how I contribute to this trash monster in the middle of the Pacific.

Anyway, I will keep recycling what I can and try to spread the anti pollution message. I want my kid to grow up in as clean as a world as I can make it.

[Mike]

Use corn diapers and hire a composting service. Only $25 a month for our service. Diapers are probably only below plastic bags in massive waste that floats out to sea.

[Bill]

There should be a fee collected from all shipping and countries responsible to fund debris removal. If giant trawlers can harvest thousands of tons of fish from the same ocean, why can't they be paid to collect the debris?

[Brian Moon]

Recycle, recycle, recycle

[karen]

I ALWAYS bring a trash bag with me to the beach. I pick up every piece of trash I see on the beach. It is so important to repect the beach and the ocean.
As I tell people who litter in the ocean "That is someone's house. You would not like me to do that in your house"

[adriana]

Money shouldn't be spent to "analyze" the trash...money should be spent to remove it.

[elsa]

using less is key to reducing the waste we generate. use reusable water bottles instead of bottled water, metal utensils instead of plastic, reusable bags instead of plastic. with plastics, only 30% of what CAN be recycled actually IS recycled. the rest ends up here.

[John Beckwith]

We need a major nuclear war. There are too many people on Earth and a nuclear war will cleanse urban types predominantly. These folks are the worst form of humanity as Tom Jefferson pointed out. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are today the most beautiful cites in the world because they got rid of the human and structural flotsam and jetsam and started over. Is that too much to ask for the sake of our planet?

[Mother Nature]

We need to stop breeding.

[Keith]

This is just adopt-a-highway all over again - picking up trash which mostly provided cover for small animals and has almost no actual environmental impact (it's just ugly, so it gets our attention)

The real dangers to the oceans - the ones that will matter in our lifetimes - are over-fishing, warming and agricultural runoff - none of which are visible.

This more charismatic topic distract us from the real problems being faced and siphon off research money which could be better spent.

Plastic doesn't biodegrade - which makes it a wonderful substrate. Substrate in the deep ocean is _the_ limiting resource for productivity. I would not be at all surprised if these ares turn out to be quite ecologically productive.

Note that there are never any pictures of the actual area - these debris had to be collected over quite a large area (a 1 hour plankton tow is processing a lot of water...)

[mike]

My 6 year old, while at the beach down the street from our house on Saturday, yelled something incoherent and ran off when something caught her eye. She returned a few seconds later with 2 cans (1 soda, 1 beer) in her hands that she had found sitting on the beach, shaking her head in anger and telling me that she wants to save the earth. It was the proudest moment of my life.

[The Unborn Generations]

The quickest way to reduce the delivery of plastics into the ecosystem is to stop purchasing, investing in and allowing the expansion of the bottled water industry.

It is simple to do. Use your tap. Get a canteen and if needed invest in a simple water filter.

If market demand for bottled water falls then the introduction of plastic in the seas will also deminish.

Bottled water has become as unpopular as wearing fur for a reason. This product is one we can all choose to avoid. Lets get with it starting today!

[Sfgpgirl]

I agree with John Beckwith | Wednesday, September 02, 2009 at 08:26 AM

"We need to stop breeding"

[Doug Woodring]

Great ideas Mike in terms of possibly having large ocean users help to pick up the ghost nets. The other option, instead of charging a fee, or in combination with that, is to give a "bounty" or reward for bringing in the ghost nets. The fees charged to some, like the tankers, could be used to pay the rewards to the fishing boats who collect it (since a tanker or container vessel can't just stop to pick stuff up). In all cases, we all win, as the nets can be bad for propellers, as well as the obvious threats to marine life.

The trick will be administering such a program.

Doug
Project Kaisei

[Yolan]

In this article, and others, I haven't found good description of the likely source or origin of fractions of the trash. What language are the labels on the less degraded pieces of plastic - English, chinese, japanese, indonesian, spanish? Even if you see lots of bottles heading to sea in rivers when it rains, I don't think that just littering by the beaches and rivers could explain a patch twice the size of Texas. Can they correct this assumption? If there is industrial dumping of trash at sea, then the efforts to halt plastic bag use won't solve the problem - even if there are other reasons to stop bottled water. What is most important is to actually solve the problem.

[aperson]

What appalling ignorance.

First of all: If the plastic doesn't biodegrade, then generally it doesn't affect or hurt those animals that swallow it. And when Dr. Andrea Neal says that the marine life is "hitching a ride" on the debris, what she's really saying is that the debris has created a new ecosystem environment in which some marine life can thrive. In other words, the debris is not harming aquatic life at all, and in fact may be helping it.

Secondly: 99% of the stuff out there in the Pacific Gyre does NOT come from the United States. It comes primarily from two sources: things that have been thrown overboard or fallen off of ships; and stuff thrown into the ocean by people in Asian countries (primarily China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia). So all these self-congratulatory feel-good gestures by the commenters above will have absolutely no effect on the amount of trash floating in the ocean.

Thirdly: People who recycle are actually part of the problem. A lot of the plastic that gets collected for recycling here on the West Coast gets loaded onto ships and sent overseas for re-processing. And some of that plastic recycled trash falls overboard from the ships during the voyage, adding to the pile of ocean-going garbage. So every time you recycle, you're actually making the problem worse.

The truth is, the only thing that's "bad" about the plastic floating in the sea is that we humans think it's "ugly." Aside from that, it's not environmentally damaging. And what these commenters here don't want to admit is that we Americans are not to blame for it in the first place.

The level of self-loathing and self-flagellation displayed here is deeply disturbing. Responses range from chastising oneself for being a consumer, to wishing humans would all die in a nuclear holocaust.

These manifestations of psychological dysfunction only confirm my suspicions about the lunacy of the California PC worldview.

[Edgerly]

You know where most of this crap comes from? The City of Oakland! Folks here just walk down the street eat'n potato chips and throw the bag on the ground when they're done like that's where it belongs! I've seen people roll down the window and throw all their McDonald's trash out the window, or even throw their little candy wrappers out right in front of me next to a fancy restaurant! I've even seen people throw those big gulp cups out the back of the AC Transit bus. Someth'n wrong with the culture here that's for sure.

[carfree]

A lot of this debris washes into the ocean from our streets, via storm drains, and not dumped at sea like many people believe. If we keep out cities cleaner the ocean will in turn be cleaner.

[Sara]

How about getting grants from foundations for commercial fishermen (who need work) to go out there and clean it up? Maybe a good portion of it can be brought back and be recycled- also a way to recoup some of the expense...

[BigDaddy69_77]

I've promoted an idea here in Berkeley which could make us the richest nation on Earth if adopted nationwide and would encourage us to tow all this trash into shore for use. I want us to build a plasma reactor which takes all trash and burns it at such high temperature that virtually no toxins are created, the end product being energy/electricity, distilled water/steam, and an inert material, a tiny fraction the size of the input stream, that can be used for things like road building, like a tar substitute. The initial outlay for the reactor is expensive, but obviously this would be hugely beneficial at all levels - local potable water source, landfill elimination, trash disposal and sorting costs reduction, local ENERGY PRODUCTION with no toxic/hazardous byproducts, concrete/tar/road maintenance material cost reduction, etc. These plants could be built right in the ports to revitalize our shipping industry and ports to welcome in the trash instead of sending tankers from the middle east laden with deadly, expensive oil. Most of this country lives on a coast anyway, so this would certainly be a boon to the majority of our population. Soon maybe we could start accepting China's trash and exporting the inert byproduct and maybe figure out a way to export the massive energy surplus we'll have since we are certainly the wealthiest nation in terms of consumption and waste.

[SingingWhale]

Don't blame Oakland, we are all to blame. We live in a disposable society and eventually everything leads to the sea. By destroying the sea we are destroying ourselves. What we can do. 1) Buy less plastic, and when you do try to purchase plastic that is made from recycled material or at least can later be recycled. 2) Reuse as much as possible, delay tossing that plastic jug as log as possible and when you toss it, toss it in the recycling bin. 3) Someone needs to organize clean up crews (our government?) This is a daunting task and may include raising billions of dollars and building a fleet of ships -and even though the clean up won't solve the problem it is a step in the right direction.

[Brian Carrillo]

What do we expect from a world gone haywire and addicted to Accumulation and Regurgitation? Our world is kept afloat by mass production and subsequently mass destruction. Stop consuming - go on a diet... spend less on new products and shop at your thrift store if you must spend... Ultimately - stop shopping!!

[jimbob]

Walmart is one of the biggest sponsors of La Raza. Why don't they redirect that money to cleaning up this mess, after all they are responsible for creating a big part of it

[Christopher]

"Posted by: Yolan | Wednesday, September 02, 2009 at 09:47 AM

What appalling ignorance.

First of all: If the plastic doesn't biodegrade, then generally it doesn't affect or hurt those animals that swallow it. And when Dr. Andrea Neal says that the marine life is "hitching a ride" on the debris, what she's really saying is that the debris has created a new ecosystem environment in which some marine life can thrive. In other words, the debris is not harming aquatic life at all, and in fact may be helping it."

Wow!!! I'm shocked at the misinformation quoted by the above poster, "Yolan." Plastic does hurt marine life. Palegic animals such as sea turtles, birds, and fish all starve or drown by ingesting plastic or getting caught in the debris.

When the plastic breaks down into plankton sized particles it potentially has catastrophic effects on the entire food chain. Plankton is a primary food source for countless sea life, and we do not know the impact that the ingestion of plastic will do through the food chain.

There are many toxins that are potentially absorbed by marine life from plastics, such as endocrine disruptors and estrogen mimics that can destroy normal development and cause mutations such as feminization of males.

Lastly, there seems to be overt racism from this poster toward Asians. Pollution is a global problem and cannot be blamed on a single region of the world. Also, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is formed by the North Pacific Gyre, with oceanic currents traveling not just from Asia, but from the western coast of North America as well.

I really am astounded that some people will defend our destructive "business as usual" lifestyle by attacking those of us that can see the writing on the wall with ignorance, racism, and falsehoods.

[Christopher]

Correction: the poster I cited is not Yolan, it is from "aperson." My apologies.

Posted by: aperson | Wednesday, September 02, 2009 at 09:56 AM"

[Egads]

A tip of the hat to Yolan, who's done the public conversation a great service by concentrating so much specious thought and meretricious reasoning so succinctly. I'll post his comments on my fridge, right next to those wonderful '50s quotes from Edward Teller touting the salubrious effects of ionizing radiation....

[Noelle]

Christopher,
Your statements about the effects of plastic in the ocean are theories, just like aperson's.
And your accusation of racism is as silly as aperson's claim that plastic is totally harmless. Littering is generally not acceptable in American culture. But go to Mexico or many parts of Asia, and it is routine. They leave their garbage, old furniture, old appliances EVERYWHERE. Not racism, just a fact.
Hiding behind race is a lame way to avoid having a real discussion.

[Joey Tobener]

We buy things that break. We throw things out. Costco, Target, Wallgreens. They all sell plastic junk that doesn't last. Where does it go?

It's cheap and we like it.

[readabook]

"Littering is generally not acceptable in American culture." - Noelle

Are you freaking KIDDING ME? Look around ANY U.S. urban or suburban area, and you will see litter EVERYWHERE. On my 2mi route to the train station, there are no fewer than 4 abandoned couches just hanging out on the sidewalk, countless cans and broken bottles, trash piles under the overpass...If you think the U.S. is somehow more virtuous than those poor, benighted, backwards Other People In Other Countries, you are being willfully ignorant. Trash is a global issue, full stop.

[Naomi]

Seriously if you can't do anything else, at least get an aluminum water bottle. It's really not a hardship. It weighs hardly anything and places like the gym, movies, etc., charge $1 or more for water. Just water! If you use it 10 times it pays for itself.

Any venue that won't allow an empty container to be filled with water once inside, instead forcing you to be gouged for the packaging and transport of all that plastic should be fined.

If everyone who goes out uses a canteen once a week, think of the impact that would make on the environment, and the horrendous companies that push the same exact water that comes out of your tap.

[Christopher]

Sorry Noelle,

I'm tired of the flat earthers and their "just a theory" excuse. Evolution - just a theory! Global warming - just a theory! Sexual orientation - just a theory! Now this?!! It's common sense to see that trashing the earth is detrimental.

I was very careful to preface my statements with words such as "potentially," "may," and "seems to be." There are countless documented reports on the the deaths of marine life by the ingesting or entanglement of plastics. This is not a theory.

Lastly, I am not denying that Asian countries are polluting. You are using a straw man argument by saying I'm hiding behind accusations of racism. Guess what? This country ships much of our toxic waste to Asia and Africa to avoid U.S. environmental laws. Just a fact.

The U.S. is 5% of the world's population, and we emit 25% of of the world's green house gasses. Remember, plastics are made from petro-chemicals, the same industry that's fighting the global warming debate with laughable misinformation. So, it's important to take a hard look at our own behaviors as a nation in this discussion.

Again, I'm emphasizing that this is a global problem with no particular country to blame. This is a situation where it will take the will of the entire world to make a change.

[Sue]

"Scientists estimate that around the world, up to one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die each year from eating plastic," according to Monterey Bay Aquarium's site. Do a little research, people!
I say lets collect some of the plastic bits and feed them to whomever thinks its okay to litter/doubts the harmfulness of eating ocean debris.

[chuck b.]

Marin County, it's great to see you so interested in cleaning up the ocean.

Maybe some day you'll express a similar level of interest in cleaning up San Francisco Bay by paying to fix your sewage treatment facility so that it doesn't dump your shit in the Bay throughout the rainy season every year.

It seems doable with your tax base, don't you think?

[Francis]

Bravo naomi, it is a problem beyond borders and we all need to be aware of our own behavior. Yes we need to recycle but we need to consume responsibly: less.

[Meseret Hailu]

But maybe this stuff will become the archaeology of the future. If the ancients had said "oh, we can't let these sunken ships clutter the ocean floors with their wasted coinage and amphorae" we would not be making such amazing discoveries today. I say leave it be.

[Stella Jane]

If we all look at all the postings together,
there are many peaceful avenues of work down which we could pass with friends of like mind.

People that think we "need" a nuclear war? Give them a basket of vegetables. Give the real statistics about the area to the humans on the planet. We can figure out how to USE that
waste / tangle/ energy. Stabilize it with wide
netting "stitched" thru the center. It will form a massive doughnut shape. once that is done, lay netting over the entire surface area. Set up solar desalinization, and call in the expert organic growers, we've got a food manufacturing island happening!

Want to start now? I'm ready...
Peace and planting,
http://www.youtube.com/stellajane13

[Henry Mulak]

I can't thank all these people enough for their hard work. This is only the beginning of a long process. As a journalist, I've been wondering about how this story would "surface." Thank god for those who give of their time, effort and money to doing something about this huge problem!

[gryphonisle]

Nice, but it seems like an effort of kindly older white people with lots of time on their hands. Walk through San Francisco and you can see stuff on its way to the gyre. Ordinary citizens finishing with a wrapper and tossing it aside. Cups, plates, bags, wrappers, newspapers, newspaper ad sections, dirty diapers, you name it--and sun flower seed shells, just dumped on the buses and streetcars. An earth day celebration, a street fair, a concert in the park, gay pride or Chinese new year, all heavily attended by environmentally conscious locals who leave behind mountains of trash because they're too lazy to carry it to its proper destination.

Heaven forbid you actually accost these people, not only will they come at you with any amount of vile language, if not threats of violence, but someone else on the bus is likely to stand up for them and their sloth.

We're not going to save the planet any more than we'll have Peace On Earth, because we're too lazy to do what is needed. Too lazy and too selfish. We'll know we've actually made progress when a major public event ends and as the last people leave, the last bits of litter are carried by them to the trash bins and those hired to clean up are left with nothing to do. We think we're so progressive yet from where I stand, I see people acting not very far above the level of a caveman. I'm not seeing the progressivism I keep hearing about.

[Clyde Barrow]

Remember last fall, we had an international ECONOMIC meltdown... I'll bet that the environmental meltdown will come upon us just as quickly... and people will say - Why didn't anybody do something about it?

[All Hope Is Lost]

I don't know about you, but 5 years ago I turned my life into a "End Of The World Party." Mortgaged the house, retired and am traveling extensively. (You should see ALL the plastic bottles littering everywhere they dont have clean drinking water, which is almost everywhere.)
I don't have or want any kids, and AM enjoying myself till it's all over for all of us. Yee Haw!!!!

[Chris Longstaff]

All trash in the streets washes into the ocean (OK nit pickers, there a a very few rare places in the USA where rivers run into the desert and dry up, you nitpickers go dry up too).

So with every storm, the plastic trash Styrofoam, wrappers and bottled dropped by people who use their Country as a Big Open Trash Bin....all this washes down to a creek, river and in the end...into the ocean. So it's NOT just about ships at sea dumping garbage bags...This happens because you, your neighbors and fiends drop your plastic crap on the ground. It would serve justice if "litterbugs" had their houses filles with ocean garbage as a punishment.

[Lauren]

If you're interested in hearing more about this (and continuing your conversation about it), Annie Crawley from Dive Into Your Imagintion was on the other boat, the New Horizon with Scripps, and documented it. We are always posting new information about it. She took video and great images. The best place to follow it is on facebook, and we will be posting articles on our website soon (starting today or tomorrow). Annie will be posting a detailed article about what happened on each day of the 3-week long expedition

http://www.facebook.com/DiveIntoYourImagination

http://www.DiveIntoYourImagination.com

[Meseret Hailu]

"You lie!"

[Francoise Gorfain]

Bonjour,
I work at the Lycee Francais Laperouse in S.F. and I wonder if you could come to our school to present what you did during your trip.
Please let me know if it is possible.
Merci beaucoup
A bientot
Francoise Gorfain