5 Gyres - Understanding Plastic Pollution Through Exploration, Education, and Action

On the plane last week to Sitka, Alaska for a round of presentations, I flipped through Curtis Ebbesmeyer's book Flotsametrics and dreamed of someday finding my own beach bound plastic ducky.

18 years ago, after a container ship accident dumped some 70,000 plastic bath toys into the North Pacific, eastbound currents deposited hundreds of yellow duckies on beaches in Sitka. The curiously cute incident attracted the attention of local reports, as well as Seattle-based Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who set out to investigate how these bath toys traveled oceanic currents. A media sensation erupted over the iconic "friendly floaters", and the investigation still continues today.

I wondered if I'd find one, perhaps on Coastal Cleanup Day. I wanted one...


 
We'd been invited to Sitka by Lynn Wilbur, Aquarium Director for the Sitka Sound Science Center, to give 14 presentations at the local schools - Mt. Edgecombe, Sitka High, and Blatchely Middle Schools. The students, as they generally do, impressed and recharged me - one group had even made a wall sized map of the world's ocean currents!   

                             

At my final presentation at the Science Center, I recounted the plastic ducky incident. There must have been something in my tone of voice, a hint of longing perhaps, as afterward, they presented me with a small, weathered yellow ducky - an original from the infamous spill! It made my month.

                             

We spent the last day celebrating Coastal Cleanup Day on a small, woody island, the pouring rain a non-issue for hardy Alaskans.
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Pristine from a distance, the island yielded an astounding amount of plastic trash - buried in the high tide line. Lynn showed me a clipboard full that she scraped out of a small square foot area:


And my find of a pen with Japanese lettering was of particular interest to local anthropologist Nancy Yaw Davis, who I had read about in Ebbesmeyer's book. She immediately gathered a group of students around to translate with her - many of them study Japanese in school.    
                                                                                                           



Regardless of where it originated from,  the pen, the plastic ducky, and the amount trash found on this "remote" island all underscore how connected we are by ocean currents - the veins and arteries of our blue planet. 

Its hard to leave a place as stunning as Sitka, but I'm quite sure 5 Gyres will return next year, to build a plastic boat, trawl in the local, seasonal gyre - and maybe find a frog and a beaver to keep my ducky company.