More plastic talk
Ten days ago, at the Surfrider summit in Ventura, I attended a presentation by Marcus Eriksen. Dr. Eriksen is the force behind the 5 Gyres Institute, an organization that is involved in understanding and combating plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. He brought with him a section of a Japanese fishing skiff that he and his crew found floating in the middle of the Pacific, a piece of tsunami flotsam that was especially poignant.
He gave a good talk. I helped him carry the boat section down to the hotel lobby as he was leaving but we didn’t get the chance to talk much. He did say he’s working on another trawl to replace the one we were going to use this summer, and he hopes it will be easier to pull behind a kayak. Marine debris (and by that, I am talking about plastic, for the most part), is the problem. We don’t even know how big a problem it is, only that it is huge. The more we learn, the more obvious it gets.
About Ken Campbell
New Release
A story of sea kayaking and science on the rugged coast of Alaska. Coming – Spring 2014.
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