SEAPLEX

The SEAPLEX cruise gets into port in Oregon today, where I believe that they are having a press conference.  There will be another press conference next week after everyone is back in San Diego.

Our first post today is from Jesse Dubler.

He writes:

What Can Our Readers Do to Make a Difference?

There are many ways to make a difference on this issue of plastic marine debris even though you may never have the opportunity to come out here to the gyre personally. I would encourage our readers to begin by visiting National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) excellent Marine Debris 101 website. As an alternative, you may want to check my own specialized clearinghouse that I have been developing over the past year, which focuses on disseminating information specifically related to microplastic marine debris. As this clearinghouse is very much under development, I would definitely welcome additional data not yet posted or volunteers to tackle various aspects under development.

If you would like to do something more tangible, you could check to see if you have a Coastal Cleanup Day event scheduled near you this coming September. In attending this one-day event, you will be joining thousands of other volunteers worldwide to pick up marine debris. You could also volunteer to collect nurdles, also known as industrial preproduction plastic pellets, on your local beach and ship them to Japan where their chemical properties would be analyzed and posted online under the auspices of project
International Pellet Watch.

For those with the business acumen, there may be promise in cleaning up some of the gyre. For instance, there is a possibility under investigation by Project Kaisei to detoxify and liquify the plastic debris into a source of fuel that would ultimately subsidize the clean-up. Further studies of the volume of the debris as well as the behavior of plastics in this area are necessary to better formulate a concrete action plan. That said, there have been instances where debris has been profitably converted into energy as seen with ghost nets in Hawaii and the New England region.

Of course, if you are in the unique position of being able to generate or otherwise provide funding for additional scientific expeditions to study the gyre in Pacific (or any of the other six gyres, for that
matter), such research would be enormously helpful in better understanding this global phenomenon.