THE FIVE GYRES

If you have every surfed, body surfed or simply been down to the beach in the ocean in the los Angeles bay area especially you would have seen the pollution left about every morning from the night tide. Even if there isn't the visual  mess if you look close enough or in some cases you don't need to close at all, You will find tiny specs of polystyrene and plastics broken up from weeks and in some cases years of floating around in the ocean we all enjoy and love to swim in.

Last Thursday we  went to watch a movie at the Patagonia store in Santa Monica. Before the Movie we had an introduction to the husband and wife team of  Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins and their Patagonia Backed 5gyres organization. Simply put their mission is to help people understand Plastic Pollution through exploration, education and action. you might remember a while back in the news about a dude that floated half way round the world on a pontoon/boat made up of plastic bottles and stunt meant to bring awareness to the effects plastic is having on the oceans and the earth as a whole.

If you are you are unaware of what a Gyre, is you might have heard of the Plastic Island in the mid Atlantic the size of Texas! Yes that's the Gyres also like me you may not be aware that there are actually "5"!! holy shit was my thoughts too 5 massive island of plastic shit floating around in our ocean.

I know what you're thinking why don't we just get out there and clean it up! net it all up! That's was my question too and one that was raised during their talk at Patagonia. The Answer to that was simply: We cannot! when you get out to the actual area where the gyre  is you would expect to see a garbage dump much like on land, apparently not. like the tiny pieces you see on the beach in Santa Monica or Venice. That's what the Gyres consist of in fact it's not even possible to see the trash from the surface in many cases and the pollution runs very deep too. It would simply take more pollution to clean it up than would be possible to retrieve. basically put a waste of time!  

The problem and source of the pollution!

Take a look around you- most of what we eat, drink, or use in any way comes packaged in petroleum plastic- a material designed to last forever, yet used for products that we then throw away. This throwaway mentality is a relatively recent phenomenon. Just a generation ago, we packaged our products in reusable or recyclable materials – glass, metals, and paper, and designed products that would last. Today, our landfills and beaches are awash in plastic packaging, and expendable products that have no value at the end of their short lifecycle. The short-term convenience of using and throwing away plastic products carries a very inconvenient long-term truth. These plastic water bottles, cups, utensils, electronics, toys, and gadgets we dispose of daily are rarely recycled in a closed loop. We currently recover only 5% of the plastics we produce. What happens to the rest of it? Roughly 50% is buried in landfills, some is remade into durable goods, and much of it remains “unaccounted for”, lost in the environment where it ultimately washes out to sea.

The Solution 

 So yeah there is a problem that much we knew.  before you go drown your world sorrows in a bottle of whiskey and wait for the end of the world. There are thing you can do! It sounds clichéd but do the simple things like don't throw your shit on the floor thinking someone else is going to clean it up. (something your parents should have taught you)  recycle and use less plastic and most importantly be aware of your own personal impact on your environment  and address your own action before looking further out.

On a wider scale support organizations like the 5 gyres team, surfrider, heal the bay etc go down do beach cleanup (here is the info for the next surfrider cleanup) get involved in keeping your own back yard clean its fun and you get to meet a ton of very cool people and connections for business.

Also you can take part in one of the five gyres expeditions!  The team hopes on a yacht and travels to all the pollution trouble spots to do research and they make it possible for you to get on board for as long as you want and help directly with the problem now that a really great way to get your hands dirty . check out their latest exhibition

Its not all completely DOOM and GLOOM  this is our home and we cant move so its about time we started the spring clean!

Related articles

• Plastic Planet: Plastic Pollution in World's 5 Gyres, Every Continent (climateofourfuture.wordpress.com)
• Expedition set to explore tsunami ocean debris field (summitcountyvoice.com)
• One Plastic Beach (milkandcookies.com)
• How Method Turns Plastic Pollution in the Ocean Into Bottles (treehugger.com)
• Green Blog: Measuring Your Plastic Footprint (green.blogs.nytimes.com)