North Atlantic Research with Help From a 12-year-old Sponsor

12 Open-Ocean N. Atlantic 2013 Samples with some of the biggest pieces we ever collect in our sampler

Six weeks ago, I returned from Bermuda with 12 more open-ocean samples all containing plastics.  We have been sampling the North Atlantic each summer four of the past five years with Dr. Maureen Conte, Woods Hole Institute, and now have a total of 46 samples. I have been in four oceans working with PlasticOceans.org, AMRF and 5 Gyres Institute and have helped collect a total of 210 surface samples, sadly all containing plastic fragments. What once came as a surpise to find all types of plastic in remote places on the planet, no longer shocks me.  Though I confess, I was holding out hope this year, that maybe, just maybe one sample in this remote area in the N. Atlantic would be plastic-free.  Now that would surprise me!  What was different that lead me to believe there was a chance? The ocean was much calmer than in previous years which we would expect to see more debris, but on the contrary, there seemed to be a marked difference in the amount of visual debris we saw floating by.  But what our surface sampler collected, made previous years appear scant.  So what did we find?  In the photo above, you are looking at the 12 vials loaded with plastic fragments smaller than 5cm, a white balloon (really!), plastic bag(another shocker), several bottle caps, lots of large fragments, and fishing gear, but the real kicker for me was scoring a milk jug ring. Can you find it in our stash?  It was serendipitous because the image below of the severely disfigured snapping turtle, Mae West, who had crawled through a milk jug ring when it was small, and due to the plastic's durability her body was forced to grew around it, is what influenced me to research this issue.

Mae West so named due to hour glass figure due to plastic milk jug ring

We have been fortunate to take students offshore over the years to learn how to collect samples and over the next several months, students from UNCW will learn how to process these samples in hopes of publishing the data from this long-term study.  Student involvement drives Plastic Ocean Project, Inc. to keep going and sometimes that drive comes from the most unexpected students.

A 12-year-old from the other side of the country, Annelie Miller, from  Mill Valley Middle School in California, decided she wanted to do something significant for the sake of our oceans in honor of World Ocean Day. She had been creating art out of non-recyclable materials as well as hand-painting pictures and notecards.  She sent a letter out to family and friends explaining the perils caused by plastic marine debris and asked that they purchase her art as a fundraiser for Plastic Ocean Project, Inc.  She must have sold a lot of her work because she raised over $700!  This donation that will help keep our research and outreach going.  Annelie has allowed us to post her painting found on Shutterfly, click here.  Thank you Annelie for your generosity, thoughtfulnes, and your passion for the sea. You have not only honored the ocean, but have helped us continue the work we do for the sake of our seas.  Annelie will be appearing on the http://sustainabilitynewsandentertainment.com/ with Diana Dehm.  Date and time TBA.

1 Day of Sampling for Plastics in the N. Atlantic

Retrieving sediment trap

This is the fourth year Plastic Ocean Project is sampling roughly the same region of the North Atlantic gyre which is also where the longest running deep ocean time-series takes place called the Ocean Flux Program (OFP) headed up by Dr. Maureen Conte our lead scientist. Flux, meaning the variability in material transfer from the surface to the deep driven by the activity between the physical, biological, and chemical processes, and longest running meaning over the past 45 years.  One area in particular we will be visiting is BATS, (Bermuda Atlantic Time Series) where meteorological measurements have been ongoing since 1988.  There is never a dull moment out here.  I was up to 3am processing our 3^rd surface sample our 1^st day.

Bermudian students removing plastic from Sargassum

It is one of the calmest visits we have had out here, roughly 700 miles of the North Carolina coast.  It looks more like a calm lake than a 3.52 million km salty water-world.  We have seen trace amounts of Sargassum, a free floating golden seaweed, that we like to find in our sampling net so we can also study the ecosystem unique to this weed.  Because it floats as do some plastics, we have long thought it was an indicator – the more Sargassum, the more plastic.  But this voyage has punched holes in this hypothesis.   As our surface sampler skimmed the top 20 cm of water yesterday, the water looked super pristine devoid of natural and man-made debris. I had hope that this sample was going to come out of the water plastic-free.  

It would be the first in four oceans -210 samples total.  But alas, with less than 10² cm of Sargassum in our net, we found hundreds of plastic fragments along with a 12 cm piece of rope and the presumed piece of a crate about the size of a half dollar that rivals our low amount of Sargassum.  Imagine my disappointment.

The word for this is heterogeneity.  Though we understand that plastics share the same ocean influences as marine biota like plankton, Selps, Copepods, and algae, it does not necessarily mean if there is an abundance of one, there will be an abundance of plastics.  One thing is for certain though, if there is Sargassum, there will be plastics, not so much because Sargassum is an aggregator as much as it all just simply follows the same motion of the ocean.

On a lighter note, as I had mentioned, there are many different types of research going on around the clock.  The fun part has been having Matt Moffett here to not only film this research project for a feature film title, Plastic Seas, directed by Jeneene Chatowski, but he has lent a much need hand to the ongoing setup and deployment of the manta trawl.  You can find a trailer to the film on Clean Canteens website who is also sponsoring the film  www.cleancanteen.com.

Matt Moffet videographer of "Plastic Seas" 

POP's art show, non-profit social media, and an unusual ocean pollution solution are on the move

Monteleone's conceptual art "What goes around, comes around"

As the human population begins to make the necessary connections that plastic is interfering with the natural world, more and more people are climbing on board to help educate, motivate, and create solutions to this growing problem.  Why? Because we are problem solvers as much as we are problem creators and that is what separates us from the natural world.  How is The Plastic Ocean Project (POP) making these connections? Through our traveling art show "What Goes Around, Comes Around," by launching our new logo, website and Facebook page, and by sharing ideas like 19-year-old, Boyan Slat, who is working on an invention for possible ocean cleanup.

Much of our U.S. populous is in landlocked areas and do not associate themselves with the problem of plastic ocean debris. Why would they when they are 100s of miles away from the ocean's edge?  But some people in these regions are making the connection that all rivers lead to oceans and that their plastics end up there from runoff.  They understand that we are all contributing to the problem and is why this art show has been  invited inland.   Last month, the POP's art show was at Guilford CollegeGreensboro, NC.  Currently, it is in landlocked Cortland, NY where people from Central NY will have the opportunity to see the plastics that were plucked from the open-ocean and from remote ocean islands thousands of miles away from the mainland.  The exhibit opened 4.4.13 with an open reception at 9 Main Street, Cortland NY at 7pm. Bonnie Monteleone will share her experiences and findings through art.  And next month it will be at 901 Pollock Street Gallery, New Bern on display with "The Gathering."  Our goal is to have it on exhibit at various locations across the U.S. until it reaches California.  (Anyone interested in having the display in their area can contact Bonnie Monteleone at blm@theplasticocean.org.)

Wiggs and Jane Horner

Jane Horner with bottle installation

Another good example of people connecting people is in New Bern - fabulous river town in North Carolina. What started in Blake Wiggs' high school environmental class making art out of plastic bottles spread like gossip to the rest of the community.  The conceptual art, fittingly titled "The Gathering" is in collaboration with artist Jane Horner.  It consists of 1,500 beverage bottles to represent the number of beverage bottles used every SECOND in the US.  The group started meeting on Saturdays in order to finish this project by May 11th for the community Artwalk Festival.  Parents, who were dropping off there children began bringing their scissors, then more and more people from the community showed up to help.  It is a microcosm of the dialog spreading globally about plastic pollution and through art, much like Picasso's art against war - The Banality of Evil, it speaks volumes without saying a word.

Slat's Array prototype

On the social media front, Diana Dehms, Martha Lyons,  Kellie Johansen and Bonnie Monteleone have been teaming up to inspire the masses to join forces with the Plastic Ocean Project, Inc. and be the forerunners in freeing the oceans from the plastic menace.  At the helm is rear Admiral Leedert "Len" Hering, Sr. (U.S. Navy retired) whose conviction is, "If we can go to the moon, we can cleanup the oceans for the next generations."  It will take governments, military leaders, students, innovators, educators, non-profits, and fishermen working together to at least try.  Boyan Slat is one such inventor who designed the Array that scours the surface of the ocean removing plastic fragments.  He has come under scrutiny from other organizations for some of his overarching expectations on a device that hasn't seen the ocean yet and though some of the backlash is right on target, we support anyone putting forth the effort to try.  As the saying goes, "Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it."  Efforts should be made not just from reducing our use of plastic and stopping it from getting out to sea via runoff, but POP goes one step further in supporting the efforts of removing as much as plastic as possible that is already out there.

UNCW Students Studying Beached Plastics

Emma Belcher entering beach sample data

The UNCW plastic marine debris research that started four years ago in the Sargasso Sea 700 miles off the coast of North Carolina has made its way to the coast of NC.  Over the past couple of semesters, students have been collecting beach samples of manmade materials and natural debris found in the wrack line to compare densities.  They are also learning how to type the plastics using FTIR instrumentation,  and Mass Spectrometry to analyze the plastics for adsorbed Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).   Dr. Brooks Avery oversees the beach sampling protocol, while Bonnie Monteleone works with students in our new lab space.  Over the past two years we have been nomads stealing space in three different labs, but as of January, we have scored a beautiful lab space in Dobo Hall courtesy of Dr. Seaton. (see images)

Misty Wilbanks shares turtle gastro-juices data with Emma 

Misty Wilbanks, highlighted in the Star News a few weeks ago, is a veteran undergraduate working up the plastics collected from our Sargasso Sea samples. Her Honors project, looking at the potential of POPs transferring from ingested plastics into sea turtle tissue, is especially unique because it requires collaboration with Dr. Pam Seaton from Chemistry, Dr. Amanda Southwood Willard from Biology, and the Virginia Aquarium Stranding Network.  Misty's hands-on experience has been valuable on many levels.  She not only is learning specialized instrumentation and the importance of collaboration, but she has also been able to train other students.

Jaclyn (Jackie) Smith bringing in beach sample into new lab

Jackie sorting out natural debris from manmade

To date, we have had 26 Direct Independent Study opportunities for students.  They learn scientific method in the field as well has how to manage their time.  Processing these samples is not trivial.  Going to the beach to collect samples is the easy part.  Dissecting the samples requires long hours in the lab.  The sample has to be dried, separated (the natural debris from the manmade materials), and weighed.  The students then separate the manmade debris by classification, then each classification weighed and counted.  The multi-dimensional data then needs to be entered into the data base.




Corina Cooling weighing dry sample

Corina Cooling preparing sample to dry

The collection of manmade debris not only is a great scientific educational tool, it also helps keep debris from washing back out into the ocean.  Plastic debris is known to be ingested by marine life as evidenced by the Bull Dolphin fish caught off the coast of Virginia not long ago.  (See photo below)

Fish caught with large plastic fragment, pudding cup and squirt gun in stomach. 

"That is the sickest sample I've seen so far"

In preparation for a talk at the Cape Fear River Watch Saturday August 4th, I came across this footage I shot when sailing across the North Pacific from Hawaii to California in 2009.  We were repeating the same sites Captain Charlie Moore had done in 1999 that led to his publishing scientific paper exposing the 6 to 1 plastics to zooplankton by weight.  That is disturbing enough, yet, our results from the 2009 resample showed that there was twice as much plastic by weight than the 1999 samples.   We had conducted 54 samples using two surface samplers - one for science, the other for educational purposes.  This video was shot over 1000 miles from land and yet illustrates the disgusting contents of plastic found in our educational sampler.  The majority of plastics found are bite size pieces festering at the surface where the base of the fish at the base of the food chain, on up to whales, feed.  I became ill after seeing sample after sample of what looked like pristine waters, reveal a horrible truth, that we have polluted every corner of our planet.

The feasibility of going out there and cleaning it up is not the best solution. Reducing our use of one- time use plastics is by far the best answer to this ubiquitous problem.  By doing so we reduce the production of plastics made out of limited resources, (toxic petroleum and natural gas) that we use once then throw away that will persist in the environment for 100s of years.  Solutions like buying locally promoting small business in your community - soap makers, farmers, thrift shops, and hand-craft makers to name a few.  When we do this, these business require a lot less packaging. REthink everything you buy.  Make a game out of supporting small businesses and encourage them to not use disposible plastics.  It beats trying to get a corporation to stop using it and you have a better shot of being heard.  Keep the image of this sample in your mind if you need help remembering why it is important.  Some good resources if you need some ideas are Danielle Richardet's blog, It Starts With Me and Beth Terry's book, Plastic Free.