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Texas-sized patch of plastic debris draws activist attention

Posted by: Maven on August 3, 2009 at 6:59 am

From the San Diego News Network:

“Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins have a message in a bottle that they just cycled 2,000 miles to deliver.

There is a patch of plastic debris slowly circulating in the Pacific Ocean that covers the size of Texas. It has doubled in size in the past 10 years and there is new evidence to suggest that the toxins it harbors are making their way into our food supply.

The couple, who work for the nonprofit environmental group Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF), stopped at Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach on June 27 after they had completed a 2,000-mile cycle from Vancouver to Tijuana to raise awareness about a heavily polluted area of the Pacific Ocean known as the Eastern Garbage Patch. Eriksen and Cummins spoke with surfers and locals about their journey and mission and plan to return to give a full presentation to the nonprofit San Diego Coastkeeper in the fall.

The bike trip was part of a campaign called Junk Ride 2009 that gave Eriksen and Cummins the opportunity to speak at 40 events, meet with five mayors and deliver bottles of plastic-laden water samples that they took from the Eastern Garbage Patch in the Northern Pacific Gyre a year ago. The Gyre is a remote area of the Pacific Ocean approximately 2,000 miles from the coast where the confluence of currents sets up a slowly rotating mass of water larger than the United States that traps the plastic debris in a massive gyre, or circular swirl. …”

Read more from the San Diego News Network by clicking here.

August 3, 2009 · Filed Under Oceans & Beaches

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