DSC_0009-327x490 From the deck of Sea Dragon

Wend magazine Editor-in-Chief and Surfrider Foundation Ambassador Stiv Wilson is on a sailboat with Dr. Marcus Eriksen of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation on an environmental research mission to explore plastic in the Sargasso Sea.

Here is his latest update, sent to Wend HQ via satellite:

By now most environmentally conscious people are aware of the giant swirling garbage gyre in the North Pacific, originally discovered in 1997 by Captain Charles Moore, founder of The Algalita Marine Research Foundation. But from the deck of Moore’s research vessel in the Atlantic, we can see that there is a North Atlantic garbage gyre as well.

Moore first published on his travels to the North Pacific Gyre in 1999, though the media was slow to react to his tales of plastic islands, and miles upon miles of marine garbage.  By 2005 major news organizations began reporting on Moore’s North Pacific Gyre, and the issue gained attention worldwide.  Currently, a team of researchers from Algalita and Livable Legacy—led by Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins—have brought a crew of artists, ocean activists, journalists, and scientists to the North Atlantic on an expedition to look for plastic debris as part of a new research initiative, The 5 Gyres project (5gyres.org).

There are five major oceanic gyres worldwide, and it is hypothesized by Eriksen and Cummins that all of these gyres collect marine debris, much in the same way that the North Pacific does.  Due to the manner by which ocean currents and tradewinds work, they form what is essentially a massive spinning vortex.  As a journalist and representative of the Surfrider Foundation aboard the Pangaea Explorations research vessel Sea Dragon, reporting directly from The North Atlantic Gyre via satellite communication, I can confirm that another garbage patch exists, here, in a disperse synthetic soup we’re currently floating upon.

As of the time of this writing, 19:31 GMT, our position is roughly 500 miles SE of Bermuda and 1000 miles SW of The Azores.  Since our departure last Thursday from Bermuda the science team has been collecting data on plastic density every 50-100 miles (weather permitting) as we sail easterly across the Atlantic towards Europe.  Using a device called a MantaTrawl, which was specifically engineered to skim the top few inches of the water, we have already collected over 12 samples during the unfinished second leg of our two-part journey.

The MantaTrawl takes a 60 by 25 centimeter sample of the ocean over a three-hour period, covering about 7 miles.  On the first leg, from the US Virgin Islands to Bermuda, we collected 20 samples. During both legs of the journey, samples have shown evidence of plastic fragments in every trawl. Varying in density, the samples from the first leg have already been shipped backed to Algalita labs in California.

Beyond fragmented and photodegraded plastic, we’ve come across what are called Windrows, areas in the ocean where currents and wind patterns conspire to make ‘patches’ where debris collects in dense clumps. These areas, often marked by large swatches of Sargassum (a plant that grows on the surface of this area of the Atlantic known as the Sargasso Sea) are where we’re finding large collections of plastic, in big chunks, floating on the surface.

Thus far we’ve found plastic milk crates, lighters, touthbrushes, bottle caps, shotgun shells, dental floss holders, buckets and bucket lids, bleach bottles, antifreeze bottles, plastic bags, plastic tubs, nail polish remover bottles, and every manner of plastic goods one would find in any grocery store across the world. As a crew, we collect this debris with large fishing nets and examine the contents.

It’s difficult to determine the actual size of the Atlantic garbage patch because our vantage—from the deck of a 72-foot research sailboat amidst the vast wilderness of an enormous ocean—is that of a needle in a haystack.  But what’s certain, given the data and debris already collected along a transect, is that the problem of plastic in oceanic gyres worldwide is at least twice as bad as researchers had previously thought and is ubiquitous in the Atlantic as well as the Pacific.

For more information and updates on the voyage, check the useful links below.

5gyres.org

Wendmag.com/Greenery

Riseaboveplastics.org

Surfrider.org