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

(By Anna Cummins) 

The boat moans eerily as is rocks side to side in the doldrums. There’s very little wind as we enter the accumulation zone of the South Pacific Gyre.  We’re finding little plastic in our trawls, which is fantastic news!  But we’re still finding some, which is not.  The manta trawl is out right now, having just pulled in the hi-speed trawl.  Those are the highlights of the day, the rest is self-induced entertainment for 13 people on the 72ft Sea Dragon.  Charlie is playing his bagpipes again.  A few are somehow able to sleep through it.  Some are reading or typing away on their macs.  Clive just finished his exercise routine.  I just finished mapping the perimeter of the South Pacific Gyre on the ships computer.  Garen and Sara are prepping for taking water samples as soon as the manta trawl comes in. 

The manta trawl is the one we deploy every 50 nautical miles.  We’ll drop it in the sea and tow it for 1 hour at 2 knots, therefore covering 2 nautical miles.  The trawl is 60 centimeters wide, so we’re covering an area of approximately 2,400 square meters.  It’s similar to half a soccer field.  Our last trawl had more than 15 particles of plastic pollution the size of grains of rice, which might not seem like much, but there are millions of soccer fields that fit on the surface of the South Pacific Ocean.

If you look at the map you’ll see an outer and inner circle.  These represent the outer dimensions of the South Pacific Gyre and the inner dimensions of the accumulation zone where floating debris collects, including plastic pollution.  We expect to pass through the center of the gyre in the next few days, then emerging out of the accumulation zone in a week. We’ll have more photos and reports to share as our expedition transects the gyre, studying plastic pollution in the region for the first time.