Ocean Conservancy
I started the day reading through https://oceanconservancy.org. My first impression is that they are (rightly) focused on political and grassroots campaigns as being an effective path forward. They talked about 8 million metric tons of plastic entering the ocean each year and that, by 2025, there will be one pound of plastic per three pounds of fish in the ocean. Also, that 80% of the new plastic in the ocean comes from land sources with only 20% coming from ocean sources like fisheries.This last statistic is somewhat surprising since it seems that, by weight, fishing hardware accounts for most of the trash in the ocean. Perhaps nets and such, being mostly fiber and metal, don't count.
The ocean conservancy also organizes groups of people to clean up beaches. In one recent article, they talked about cleaning up 20,000 pounds of plastic on one island. It sounded like a lot of work and their pictures of piles of fishing gear reinforces the message about ghost gear being a major problem. As a side note, I learned last week that many beaches have more than 90% of their plastic buried by sand. It was not clear from their article how they approached this or if it was a problem.
https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2019/06/10/hard-work-partnership-nearly-10-tons-trash/
I did not find anything about them sponsoring or working with technical solutions in the ocean. They did show, though, that there are significant investments being made (+ $100 million) in catching and processing trash on the land before it makes into the ocean. The goals seem to be to focus on Asian countries where infrastructure has not caught up to the growing quantities of plastic trash.
The Ocean Cleanup
This website is much more aligned with my interests: a focus on engineering solutions. When I think about how I might be able to help with this particular issue, my mind usually wanders to engineering/science support.
I've previously heard of them and visited their website. I've followed their various trials and solutions and am glad to see them heading back out to sea relatively soon. It would be great to work with/for them, but their European Union location and work requirements make that difficult.
One blog post I thought was interesting was the discrepancy between how much plastic they expect to find and how much they actually find. Turns out they find less than expected. The article talks about three sources of the error including overestimating how much plastic enters the ocean and underestimating how much plastic sinks or washes up on beaches. They also add that, anecdotally, they found much more fishing related trash than anything else in the Pacific Gyre.
It would be great to find an organization like this in the US that I could participate with in some way.
Radio Segment on "The World"
I listened to an interesting radio segment on what really happens to plastic we "recycle" in the US. Essentially, it gets dumped in another country where people sift out what is profitable and what isn't. They illegally burn the stuff that isn't and it's effecting health and safety of the communities they pop up in. Places like Berkeley, CA decided to stop shipping plastic as a result of investigations such as this one, but they now pay $75 per ton of plastic instead of being paid $35 per ton of plastic.There two links. The first is a condensed version of the second.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-06-13/americas-grungy-recycled-plastic-creating-wastelands-asia
https://www.pri.org/file/2019-06-13/whats-happening-all-plastic
Seabin
I'd heard of seabin before; they're the people who lower a bucket just below the surface of the water. The water at the surface flows over the edge in a narrow sheet, bringing with it anything on the surface. The water is filtered with a pump and bag. It works best where the water is calm, so they target marinas. Which is cool, because they say there happens to be a lot of trash in marinas to clean. Their newest versions are looking at how to make the mesh finer to catch microplastics.
I like how elegant the solution is. Lower the bucket, pump and filter, and you're done except for cleaning the bag out occasionally. They hint at one of their issues, though, with a recent post on microplastics: the filter is indiscriminate. Anything that happens to be floating on the surface goes through the filter and that includes organisms. In a marina, maybe you expect most anything on the surface to be trash and chemicals anyway.
I'm wondering if there's a way to combine their simple collection system with a more intelligent filtration system. They already require that they're plugged into a 110V system (2.5A, 275W). What would it take to do some sort of analysis of things flowing over the edge and making quick decisions on what to do with it?
Scarcity of Well-Publicized Engineering Projects
One thing I've noticed is that Seabin and "The Ocean Cleanup" are mentioned over and over again in review articles discussing "promising projects that will clean-up the ocean". It's these two and (seemingly) nothing else. There seem to be thousands of articles and a million pictures of trash on beaches and in the water. Lots of articles and pictures of people cleaning up beaches as well. But hardly anything about real efforts to autonomously clean things up.
The problem, of course, is the crazy high costs. Even if the technology IP was free, building and implementing any system will take millions. And it's a losing proposition financially with no clear way to make a profit. Huge problem coupled with huge cost seems to equal nothing but studies. This is one of the weaknesses of a capitalism-based society.
Along these lines, the guy who first "discovered" the garbage in the Pacific doesn't think it's possible to clean it up. He says all the studies he's been a part of point to it bankrupting any country that tires. Yikes.
https://www.newsweek.com/can-pacific-garbage-patch-be-cleaned-75657
Along these lines, the guy who first "discovered" the garbage in the Pacific doesn't think it's possible to clean it up. He says all the studies he's been a part of point to it bankrupting any country that tires. Yikes.
https://www.newsweek.com/can-pacific-garbage-patch-be-cleaned-75657
Is there no way for citizens to do anything?
Ocean First Event
I tend to dive and shop with the Ocean First shop in Boulder, CO. I've been diving with them for probably 10 years now. This last Saturday, they had their annual party. They have free classes as part of the event and two of them lined up with my interests: one on volunteer tours and one on marine trash. Both featured Dr. Mikki Mcombs-Kobza. She runs their non-profit Ocean First Institute which focuses on shark science and introducing young students to the problems and solutions around ocean health. I introduced myself to her after the last class and talked (very) briefly about my interest and background. The hope is that we can find a time in the near future that works for both of us to see if there might be a way for me to pitch in.
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