Today post brought to you by: www.EcoSportsBottle.com
Two eco-mariners are sailing a raft built of junk to help call attention to a major oceanic environmental problem – the accumulation of plastic trash in the seas.
WHY IS THIS PROBLEM IMPORTANT: The huge volume of plastic trash now drifting in the oceans interrupts the feeding of marine life (birds choke on plastic trash, plankton ingest microscopic particles of plastics) and plastics release toxins into the water.
WHERE IS IT WORST: In the North Pacific Gyre, north of Hawaii, there is now more plastic, by weight, than plankton. It’s a huge region of circling currents that concentrate the debris, thousands of miles from land.
VOYAGE DETAILS
DEPARTURE FROM CALIFORNIA: June 1, 2008 from Long Beach Aquarium
ARRIVAL IN HAWAII: August 27, 2008 (current estimate) in Ala Wai Harbor, near Honolulu, Oahu
THE TWO MARINERS: Dr. Marcus Eriksen, Joel Paschal, with Anna Cummins as ground support.
PURPOSE OF JOURNEY: To call attention to the growing problem of plastic trash in the Pacific Ocean
THE RAFT: 30 feet long, built on six pontoons filled with 15,000 plastic bottles, deck is made of salvaged sailboat masts, cabin is the fuselage of a Cessna airplane, the vessel has 4 sails and can make 90 degrees headway into the wind.
SPEED: roughly 2 knots, equals about 50 miles per day
FOOD: They brought several months supply which has been supplemented with mahi mahi and squid they have caught along the way
BLOG: http://www.junkraft.com/
