junk raft

As the OCYC blog noted recently, British adventurer and environmentalist (and hunk) David de Rothschild is set to lead an expedition this summer across the Pacific Ocean in the Plastiki, a 60-foot vessel made entirely out of recyclable plastic -- mostly bottles.

The New Yorker recently caught wind of de Rothschild's plan, and published a feature about it in the April 6 issue (abstract only.)

Plastiki will visit the Eastern Garbage Patch, collect water samples and document it all on de Rothschild's Adventure Ecology site. Sound similar to a little 2008 project called Junk Raft? Turns out de Rothschild was inspired to embark on the voyage after reading Captain Charles Moore's article about the Eastern Garbage Patch.

I'm glad to see that plastic pollution in the ocean is getting some serious attention. Stay tuned for more on the Plastiki; meanwhile, the New Yorker blog has this interesting video about the making of the boat:

Happy April Fools' Day! I'm back from the Seattle Green Festival, where with the help of around 18 fantastic Wavemaker volunteers, we collected more than 1500 petitions for the Campaign to Stop Seafood Contamination in two days. No foolin'.

Some highlights from the Fest:

-A friend of one of the members of the Junk Raft crew showed us a canister of plastic soup they brought her from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. (See above photo). She carries it around in her purse to teach people about plastic pollution in the ocean.

-Our volunteers were good sports about wearing ridiculous fish hats. (Again, see above.) Lots of people asked where we got the hats from, but one determined kid marched right up to the counter and said, "One dolphin hat, please."

-Our neighbor booth was occupied by the People for Puget Sound, whose octopus and one-of-a-kind geo duck (pronounced "gooey duck") costumes, in tandem with our giant inflatable tuna, made us THE place to be in the Washington Convention Center.

Check out more photos from the Fest on our Flickr account.

Today at Dot Earth, a short but hard-hitting video about shifting baselines that compares the observations from a Pacific ocean voyage 50 years ago with one this year, on the Junk Raft.

Move over, Jack Johnson, there's a new Hawaiian singer-songwriter in town, and this guy's got a message about plastic in our oceans. Together with the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, creators of the afore-blogged Junk Raft, Micah Wolf made this great music video for his new song “One By One” to raise awareness about the harmful effects of plastic in the environment. For more info on plastics, check out Algalita’s http://plasticsareforever.org, and don't forget to sign our plastics pledge if you haven't.


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After three months of sailing across the Pacific ocean to raise awareness about plastic pollution in the sea, the Junk Raft has made land in Hawaii!

Here's an excerpt from their victorious post:

"2,600 miles of open ocean crossed in 87 days. From our first week of sinking hopes on a sinking raft, through four hurricanes that swept under us, to the unbelievable chance meeting with Roz Savage in the middle of nowhere, we have had quite an adventure. We’ve collected 10 ocean surface samples using our marine debris trawl, managed to snatch a few large pieces of plastic debris that floated under us, and caught fish with stomachs filled with particles of plastic. Plastic is forever, and it’s everywhere.

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Today the Junk Raft blog notes that they've rendezvouz'd in the middle of the Pacific ocean with Roz Savage -- another courageous soul crossing the Pacific solo to advocate for marine conservation.

I've written about the Junk Raft before, but to review, they are sailing from California to Hawaii on a raft made of plastic to raise awareness about plastic pollution in the oceans.

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I know I've been harping on the plastics/pollution issue a lot lately, but it seems like the din around the issue is growing louder. First, there's the Junk Raft, project of Algalita Marine Research Foundation. The blog's tagline is, "Sailing [from California] to Hawaii on 15,000 plastic bottles and a Cessna 310, to raise awareness about plastic fouling our oceans." Yesterday was the raft's one-month mark at sea, and they say they have an estimated eight more weeks to go.

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