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11 September 2006

Holy calamity scream insanity

by Matthew onboard the Esperanza

The marine debris sampler.
©Greenpeace/Alex Hofford
Plastics are everywhere, even if you can't see them, trust me they're here. I'm trawling the Pacific with 'The Yellow Thing'. Not for fish but to see what is floating on and just below the surface. It's quite a pleasant way to spend some time on the Esperanza.

Deep dark blue water, a light swell, the horizon cutting off the ocean and layering the blue hues of the sky on top. Perfect. Paradise – nothing out here but nature. Wrong. Every trawl reaps plastics. Every trawl.

I guess it is like other realities I can't see but have to accept - gravity, taxes, traffic.

The sea looks pristine but each time I empty that net there are plastics.
Yesterday I was sure the trawl would be clean. The ocean looked so blue and calm, so empty. I watched the ocean with hawk eyes looking for plastic and I couldn't see a thing. But then sure enough, some packing tape and some plastic packaging mixed in with krill and small fish.

If I hadn't come to the Esperanza and done this sampling I would never had believed how much plastic humans have dumped in the ocean. I am still coming to terms with the amount of plastic in the sea.

*Editor’s note: Matthew is in charge of the 'Yellow thing'. A purpose built marine debris sampler which has been designed to collect the small pieces of plastic that can’t been seen from deck. The samples are being stored and will be sent to the Greenpeace science unit in England.

       

   

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Comments

Awsome job...

I feel sorry for the cute baby sword fish though :)

Posted by: Heidi at September 11, 2006 11:32 AM

This is pathetic!!! I think this illustrates that more education is needed in our schools on pollution! I feel sorry for the baby swordfish too! It's so adorable!! SAY NO TO PLASTIC!!! =D

Posted by: Louise Colliver at September 12, 2006 1:50 PM

Hi Matthew,
thanks for these moving information and pictures... but couldnt' you please include some of YOU handling this instrument?
Love, Annie (25, red-haired and fruitarian)

Posted by: Annie at September 18, 2006 12:35 PM

Finally!


We have received positive identification on the critters trawled in the Pacific Ocean just east of the Philippines one month ago by the Yellow Thing.


This analysis has been provided by Leslie of the Wetpixel Underwater Photography website (www.wetpixel.com):


** The stuff growing on the blue plastic isn't really coral, it's a bryozoan as far as I can tell from the picture. The crustaceans in the images they call krill are really copepods; true krill are euphasids. The "martians" are very cool - they're marine insects, genus Halobates. These little guys are called water striders or water skaters because they stay on the surface of the water. The golden ovoids on the coral may be Halobates eggs.

http://www.unk.edu/acad/biology/hobackmar...lobateslife.htm **

Posted by: Alex at October 5, 2006 8:45 AM

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