The Ocean Cleanup

I have visited the Galapagos Islands, which are the most pristine in the world. The animals are so protected there, that they have grown up with no fear of humans. You can walk past a nesting bird with her chick and she will show no fear. Anyplace else in the world, animals are rightfully terrified of humans. These islands show up what the world should be like.

In contrast to the Galapagos archipelago is another group of islands constructed soley by human wastefulness. These “islands” are actually rotating ocean currents, or gyres, that have collected millions of tons of trash in the form of synthetic polymers, or plastics, that float and degrade in the ocean permanently. There are five large gyres, the largest of which is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which covers an area twice as large as Texas.  

Most of the plastic breaks down into small pieces less than 1/5 of an inch, creating a thick toxic soup that strangles or poisons millions of marine animals yearly.

Ultraviolet light further degrades the plastic, making microplastics, and causing it to leach BPA and other toxic derivatives into the water, harming and poisoning marine flora and fauna on a genetic level and wreaking havoc on the oceanic food chain.

Oceanographer Charles Moore estimates plastic waste is "dispersed over millions of square miles of ocean and miles deep.” This bizarre contrast to the idyllic Galapagos islands is worse than you can ever imagine. It keeps me up at night and it should you, too.

Is There Hope?

Boyan Slat was only 18 years old in 2013 when he started  The Ocean Cleanup.

An 18 year old named Boyan Slat invented a system to address the massive amount of plastic choking our planet's waters. This photo is from their website and is included here via the Fair Use Doctrine for Educational Purposes. Please support The Ocean Cleanup

Using biomimicry, Boyan has invented a mechanical marine pod inspired by the shape of the manta rays he saw while scuba diving in Greece. Along with Boyan’s brilliance and innovation must also come a worldwide awareness of this plastic stream and a commitment to stopping it before it gets into our waterways and oceans.   Will the world be smart enough to change?  Or will human greed take the easy way out and continue to use the oceans as trash bins until we destroy ourselves, too?

Please support The Ocean Cleanup for the sake of your kids, grandkids, and all the poor animals who are suffering from the literally trillions of pieces of plastic trash that humans have made and discarded in our planet's oceans and rivers.