"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
                                                        -African Proverb

I saw this proverb on my in flight movie on the way to the British Virgin Islands. I read it and processed it after a minute, the movie was emotionally draining and processing this proverb took minute. Fortunately I had the luxury of rewinding. This trip is all about coming together as nonprofits as women and as mothers and daughters to change the world. Anyone who works in the nonprofit world can tell you sometimes coming together can be difficult. Some people view each other as competition, as in we are all competing for the same all mighty donation. To us we just want to make a difference and the only way we see that happening is if we come together.

We all come from different walks, but not so extraordinarily different. We all hail from the U.S. but we all have traveled pretty extensively so we understand some of the issues we face, but we have never lived it. How do you tell someone living in extreme poverty to think about the products they use in terms of the environment?

Jennifer Palmer, a lovely woman and marine biologist on the boat, has just come back from a four month trip traveling mostly through villages in Indonesia. In some of these places the only clean water is is through a water bottle. Or now the only way they could find laundry detergent was in single-use packets. Not only is this not cost effective, in an area that could use cost effectiveness more than anything, it is extremely wasteful and not ecomonically sound.  In a place where there is literally nowhere to put waste. Who is running the dog and pony show over there? To create change globally, we need understand the way others live.  As Tonia Lovejoy, founding member of Beautiful Nation  often asks, "How does where you live effect how you live?" This question is one of many this crew has been wrestling this past week.

These are the big questions with multifaceted answers, this trip is about making a roadmap to those answers by way of educating children around the world. Olivia Ries has been giving us been educating us through the OMG curriculum, helping us get the tools we need to go out into the world and educate others. Because we won't have all the answers, but we may spark the interest of the kids who will.

WOmen, Water, and Waves

We have very little access to Internet but we do have  Beautiful Nation telling our stories from three mother daughter teams and of course the other 8 who all have mothers that created these people who work tirelessly on behalf of Mother Earth. Please learn more by following this link! http://www.beautifulnationproject.org/blog

Mama Let Your Daughters Grow Up To Be Sailors

This week POP, Inc. will be joining Beautiful Nation Project’s leg with Pangaea Explorations, sailing from Tortola, British Virgin Islands to Turks and Caicos. And we just got word that One More Generation (OMG) is going to partake in the voyage as well. To say this is but a dream would be an understatement. Between our traveling art show making it across the United States and our matching campaign with All At Once as part of Jack Johnson Ohana Foundation, we can say we had our best year yet.  With all of the wonderful things happening it goes without saying for me and Bonnie it has been a whirlwind of excitement with a touch of exhaustive hard work that has left us with hope.

The payoff of our work will be a little more work, but who can complain when the work is being done on a sailboat! We have the unique opportunity to be part of a crew that will be conducting research by trawling for marine debris as well as visit local schools leading discussions about our ‘plastic footprint’ and the challenges their communities face because of it. The goal of this voyage is to create a toolkit for students to give plastic a global value. Our crew has the right combination of passion, brains and creativity that could inspire real change on the islands and ultimately the planet.

Hope is what keeps us going, not just at POP, Inc., but also as human beings. We all have something we are striving for and while we work our way to get it, hope is at the end of the tunnel. This voyage is particularly special because we will have three sets of mothers and daughters on board. From Beautiful Nation Project there will be Tonia Lovejoy and her mother Debbie Winterbauer. Their shared reverence for the planet has helped mold a geosocial network that provides free educational resources for schools across the globe. Take a look here and see how you can join the network http://www.beautifulnationproject.org. Also joining the crew are Olivia Ries and her mother, Lauren. Olivia who is now 10 years old started One More Generation with her brother in 2009; to say she is a remarkable young person would be putting it VERY lightly. Olivia and her brother, Carter, have done more for conservation and education than most politicians, celebrities or maybe even the Dalai Lama. I am in awe of their dedication, creativity and their understanding of the importance of educating others, especially their peers. A simple google search of them returns accolades from all corners of the earth, or you can check them out here http://onemoregeneration.org don't forget to watch the video below and be in awe for yourself. The last of the mother daughter teams is me and Bonnie (who I affectionately call Bon Bon), she is the reason I am here on this beautiful planet and why we get to be in such inspiring company for nine days.

Bon Bon and I may have started our journey together in 1983, but our desire to save our oceans started more recently. In 2008, Bonnie read an article about the North Pacific Garbage Patch and just like that an activist was born. She began reading, listening or watching anything she could get her hands on to learn about the problem our oceans were facing in regards to marine debris. It became all she talked about with me and my brother, at first, I’ll be honest, it was a little overwhelming. But we all changed our ways; her passion to save our oceans soon became my passion and I have been working with her ever since. The trouble is we are 700 miles away from each other and very rarely get to work hands on together, this opportunity is something we have been hoping for, for a very long time.

One way or another each of us embarking on this voyage has been inspired by our family, and it is the hope for our future generations that keeps us going. I think this group is on the cusp of something magical and truly believe we will make a great difference. Keep a lookout for our happenings along the journey #ImonTHEBoat 

For more information about Pangaea Explorations visit their website http://panexplore.com

And again, these kids...AMAZING!

           
Written by: Tricia Monteleone

Rock-O-ber: From rocking the art van to a hurricane

POP Inc.'s art exhibit at the Fort Fisher Aquarium, NC

What a rocking October for Plastic Ocean Project, Inc.  As of October 1st our traveling art exhibit arrived in California making it's 26th and final destination as part of the funding from Project Aware.  We had one year to complete the cross country exhibit and on December 1st, it will be on display at the Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach, CA. Project Aware does so much good, not only by helping protect marine life like sharks, but also fund diving campaigns and helps small non-profits like ours accomplish big goals. But we would have not been eligible for those funds if it weren't for our supporters voting for us to win the grant money to get our show on the road.  Through this initiative we have shed light on the proliferation of plastic marine debris to 1000s more people of all ages. Now to find funding to help bring it back across the US.

Pyramid Lake, NV

The exposure the exhibit has received has led to so many requests that we put together a smaller version that is currently at the Fort Fisher Aquarium, NC and will be on display until November 30 and will then move to UNC Chapel Hill.  But this is only our outreach front. Last month not only did we collect trash in the N. Pacific with Ocean Defenders Alliance, but we also sampled an endorheic lake meaning there is no outlet, water only leaves via evaporation.  Why would this be significant to study?  Because if you think about it, it is a microcosm of an ocean.  We can learn a lot about runoff, Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and how plastic marine debris persists in this environment.  More on the findings later.

Mid-October, we spent two weeks sampling off the shores of Bermuda.  What made this years sampling even more unique was the fact that we had the opportunity to sample after a tropical storm AND a category 2 hurricane.  We now have five years of open-ocean samples collect in the N. Atlantic gyre with significant evidence from this last outing that put exclamation points on top of the results established over the past four years.  Just a couple examples.

1. Just like gyre circulation systems are a transport for plastic marine debris on a grand scale, surface eddies serve as mini gyre systems.

Visible convergence zone where plastic and marine life meet

2. Convergence zones where different temperatures of waters meet are aggregates for marine life as well as free floating plastics making plastic debris more readily available for ingestion and entanglement.  Here is a video where you can see a convergence zone notice the teal blue waters of Bermuda butting up against the deep colder waters of the open-ocean.  We could actually see with your own eyes all the trash along this edge. So if Boyan Slat wanted to find a sweet spot for his ocean cleaning device, he might want to start in regions like this - not too far from land.

Sampling in 4' seas in the N. Atlantic gyre

3.  As the sea state goes up, meaning as the wind speed and  wave height increase, the number of plastic pieces goes down, yet, we find the size of the pieces increase.There are other points to be made, but we will save that for our potential publication coming out early 2015.

But Plastic Ocean Project, Inc goes beyond research and outreach, we are also about collaboration.  We asked Beautiful Nation Project if they would like to join us on our fall N. Atlantic research cruise with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Maureen Conte, PhD.  They accepted and for those of you with middle school children and/or educators, visit their website.  They are using ships of opportunity as a means of an educational platform to bring ocean science and the students around the world into your classroom.

N. Atlantic surface sample 

Also, we continue to support the efforts of 5 Gyres Institute who are promoting the banning of micro beads in consumer products in particular Plastic Tides who is currently paddle boarding up the Erie Canal to the NY State Capital from Ithaca IN WINTER CONDITIONS, to promote awareness to the ubiquitous quantities of plastic beads intentionally entering our water via companies that put them in their products.  Go Christian and Gordon!

Hurricane Gonzalo Stirs Up the Sea and Spits Out Plastic

When we signed on to do our fifth year of sampling in Bermuda we had no idea that this year we would have an opportunity like no other. We were provided the chance to sample beaches before and after a hurricane, when does that ever happen? And exactly what we hoped we wouldn't find we found, but we were glad we were there to document it.   

Hurricane Gonzalo ripped through Bermuda and what washed in wasn't pretty. The sargassum was full of plastic particles, the pictures don't do it justice as the whole beach was covered with sargassum just like this. It's so disheartening to see this outcome, as if we needed another eye-opener.  To know that animals are mistaking these pieces of plastic for food, and even if they weren't and they were to go eat a piece of sargassum they would end up with plastic as a side dish. To me that seems like being at your favorite restaurant and finding a short and curly in your favorite dish, not appetizing and definitely not healthy.

Bermuda wasn't the only island to get hit, and they are certainly not the only island with plasticized sargassum. They've all started their clean ups on the islands, but the clean up needs to start now in our everyday lives. How are we going to stop this from taking over our beaches our oceans?

It is time for us to head out to sea, to see what Gonzalo has in store for our next few days of surface sampling. I'm curious to see in the aftermath of a hurricane what the trawl will come out with. Will we see what we saw on the beach or have the rough seas hidden the problem just under the surface? We'll find out and let you know soon.

Written by: Tricia Monteleone

POP Hopping the Bermuda Triangle

Surface sampling in a desert lake

You might say Plastic Ocean Project has been getting around! Two weeks ago we surfaced sampled Pyramid Lake in Reno, NV, had a beach cleanup at Santa Monica Beach, CA organized by high school student Leyla Namazie, combining forces with St. Mary's College and Heal the Bay, collected trash while visiting with Ocean Defenders Alliance, Huntington Beach, CA, and currently joined Beautiful Nation Project in Bermuda to show students from schools around the world how we study plastics in the ocean.  Phew, its been busy.  

Mark Gandolfo UNR exams sample

Cleaning up the environment needs a lot of players.  From educators like Tonia Lovejoy and Shanon Hagon, Beautiful Nation Project, teaching children around the globe about ocean issues through STEM to caring people like Kurt Lieber, founder of Ocean Defenders Alliance.  His crew works on cleaning up the bottom of the ocean from dangerous lost fishing gear that capture unsuspecting prey that feeds on animals trapped in the net and then often times get entangled as well.  More and more people are stepping up to organize cleanup events and getting involved in studying all bodies of water for plastics including lakes. Thanks to Mark Gandolfo and Nancy Vucinich, who helped us work with the Paiute Indian Reservation that allowed us to sample Pyramid Lake just outside of Reno, NV.

Thanks to the funding from Project Aware who funded our plastic trash art exhibit, we successfully delivered "What goes around, comes around" to southern California where it will go up on display at the Aquarium of the Pacific come December 1st.  Another success, thanks to the generous contributions from people like you, singer-songwriter Jack Johnson matched donations of $2500 so we can continue the work with so many people across the country and across the pond to Bermuda.  We will be going out to sea with Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences working around the hurricane that is headed this way.  Stay tuned!

We will begin our surface sampling tomorrow so stay tuned to see what the Tropical Storm Fay might have dragged in. 

Big Skies, Boulders, and Blue Minds

Since February, our 25’ canvases of ocean waves have been rip curling up and down the East coast, across the center, and on to the West coast of the United States.  We drove over 5000 miles meeting countless people along the way, handing out business cards at gas stations, small shops, to people that attended our presentations, and to those at the river and ocean cleanups we took part in.  The energy has been contagious, something to the variety of what Wallace J. Nichols might call the Blue Mind. If you haven’t picked up his New York Times Best Seller yet, and need an uplifting book on the power of water for mental as well as physical wellbeing, get it.   It’s true what he says about the power of water.  One of my first questions I ask my audience when I give presentations is, “You are here to learn more about plastics in our oceans, why does it bother us so much?”  I know it did me.”  I think it is primal.  This concern for our water drove my conscience to want to travel in and around 4 ocean gyres, to create art out of the trash I collected in those regions, and to want to bring the images of trashed seas inland and across the USA to inspire the conversation.  Where is away when we throw our plastics away? Why do we, and more importantly, why should we care?  Believe me, there are a lot of caring people out there.  And it all comes back, I think, to the primal need and love of water whether we are drinking it, soaking in it, or playing in it. 

After picking up our exhibit, “What goes around comes around” from the University of Nevada Reno to take it to Southern California, my daughter Tricia and I had a choice to take either Rt. 5 down the California coast, through the Sierra Mountains on Rt. 395.  Tricia’s route won the toss.  We thought we would drive until 1 or 2 in the morning, but found out the hard way that the small town hotels do not leave the light on after midnight so we were forced to drive  hours into the night with no place to stop along the dark, lonely desert road.  Oh but the stars, I felt like I was back out on the open-ocean because there was no ambient city lights to distort the view.  We gave in to Morpheus at about 3am pulling into a closed gas station to hunker down.  With the van full of art we slept sitting upright in the cold, dark desert.  Even the best laid plans . . . .

We awoke to the sun creeping over the mountains as we watched the long jagged mountain shadows gently shrink to yellow beams of light over Mono Lake.  Little did we know we parked just feet from the entrance to Yosemite National Park.  We couldn’t resist a detour. 

Climbing over boulders while listening to the many different languages spoken from visitors sharing the experience, we became dwarfed by the grandeur like children in an amusement park.   But it was the water that drew us in to go beyond the climbing, and gandering.  Tricia spied a glistening pool of water below snow top cliffs and with her at the wheel, we found ourselves pulling off the road to take better pictures.  The pictures turned into wading, and the wading turned into a dare that ended in a dip in glacier cold water.   We were electrified with laughter and squeals from the cold.  Water, J. Nichols, that replenished our bodies and spirit that the energy we put into helping protect water through countless miles of lost sleep, money spent, and preparation is returned to us simply by being a submerged in clean, cold water.