Synthetic Ocean

May 20, 1995. It was one of those days when the Atlantic seemed to take a little break from his incessant movement. The surface shone like glass, a blinding blue was everywhere. The sky was smooth, there was not a cloud and that sun at the zenith, just a good pair of glasses antireflection allowed me to scan the horizon with eyes wide open. The perfect visibility and that lake around us instead of the ocean, gave a tour of duty that a relaxed atmosphere. The autopilot to their work and the engine of our 15-meter schooner constantly muttering maintaining a speed of 8 knots, the sails slept, and so did the crew. More or less dormant, others were distributed in disorder between the cover and the central pozuelo, letting the sweet rocking motion of no waves that day. There was no hurry, the storm had caught us right in the three days before our brief stop in the Azores, we literally had to fly over the water. Deserved rest now, even during navigation.

I used to clean up the organic emptying the bucket overboard, fruit shells and the remains of our delicious meals Atlantic ended in the wake of the boat and then dispersed in a lonely journey of decomposition more or less long, rinse the bucket and back to the kitchen. Parted plastic and cardboard in different bags and after being reduced to minimum volume (space was not on!) Encerrábamos what the stern racel to travel with us to the next port. Glass bottles, after breaking away from the rail with winch shackle, ended up in pieces at the bottom of the sea to go back to being what they were: sand. In small boats separate collection is not disputed, and you're done. The sea teaches there, too.

Crews hoped that all verifications attention as we did in the least possible impact on the fragile balance of the sea, although he had definite proof that it was not. More than once during that voyage we had encountered clusters of plastic debris that formed small islands or floating solitaire, traps fatal to many species of marine mammals such as dolphins and whales to turtles and fish that died after having swallowed by mistake, or seabirds that confused the small fish wastes which nourished their pups, killing them. They are not always the ships or boats that pull the waste into the sea, they are responsible for 5%. Most comes from land: industrial packaging and landfill near the sea are the source of waste and storm currents spread to every corner of the ocean.

Today, 15 years after that call, comes the news that the volume of accumulated plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean has the size will hit the United States (data on the actual size have many variables) are obviously not together as if were a new landmass, most are fragments that float at different depths, as well as on the surface.

No clutch is a phenomenon called the Pacific trash vortex →. He has discovered the American oceanographer Charles Moore. This is a huge cluster that moves with the currents, an immense mass of debris, divided into two distinct rotary motorcycles. It originates within 500 miles of California, across the Pacific subequatorial and reaching almost to Hawaii Japan. It lies just below the water level, with a thickness of about 10 meters and a total of 100 million tons of plastic waste, is constantly growing. It has been defined as "an animal without a leash when approaching the land is like vomit, and the beaches begin to cover pieces of plastic."

The sea of ​​plastic would be the cause of death of over one million birds and mammals of a hundred thousand each year. Can only be remedied by a policy would replace the substitute biodegradable plastic products and a diligent practice of recycling, although it is known that economic interests are much stronger than common sense. At the end is more profitable to produce plastic products that make biodegradable materials and the ocean will continue becoming a marine landfill. Nothing is created and nothing is destroyed ... and you throw in an unconscious way sooner or later returns to the plate you eat.

Written by Giovanna Draghi, published in equatik.com

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