Plastics in our Oceans
A voyage across the ocean in a plastic boat seems an unlikely way to fight the buildup of plastic in the ocean. Yet that is just what David de Rothschild and team are planning as they build a 60 foot boat made entirely from recycled plastic. Dubbed “Plastiki”, after Thor Hyerdahl’s “Kon-Tiki” that made a similar voyage in 1947, the vessel is being manufactured out of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) - the same material used to make water bottles. Their goal is to change the public view of plastic as a one-use material into one that sees plastic for what it really is - a cheap and versatile raw material that can be reused time and time again.
The voyage calls attention to the toxic soup created from decades of dumping used plastic into the ocean. The mess created by our throw-away society has been consolidated by the winds and currents of the North Pacific Gyre into vast floating garbage patches. Much of the plastic is visible - bottles, toys, bags, netting, etc., but most of what is floating is invisible, because over time, plastic breaks apart into micro-particles. In some areas of the gyre the ratio of plastic to plankton is as high six to one. Birds, fish and mammals choke on and are poisoned by the bigger pieces, while the tiny particles are ingested by small marine life and enter the food chain. To make matters worse, the micro-particles attract and absorb toxic chemicals that are ingested as well.
As de Rothschild likes to say, the solution to pollution is not dilution. We need to change our thinking about the life cycle of plastic. The voyage of Plastiki demonstrates that plastic is not the problem – it’s how we use plastic. We don’t think of steel as a material to be dumped in the ocean after a single use. Steel is melted down and reformed. We can do the same with plastic - it is a matter of changing how we view it.
-Pete
