Plastic in a belly of a jelly fish
So far, we found plastic in every trawl, however it appears that the situation is not as bad as it is in North Pacific. Of course, this is too early to argue since we are still far away from the center of the gyre, which is some 730 miles North East from Saint Thomas and some 230 miles east of Bermuda. Just minutes after writing the above paragraph we caught something very interesting in our trawl. A jelly fish wi...

More
Trip to the Hassel Island
The day was perfect, we dropped our dingy in to the water and headed out to a secluded beach on the south side of Hassel Island. I was really looking forward to it because I have never visited this place before and I wanted to see what kind of pollution we are going to encounter there. Of course, I was hoping for a clean beach so we can relax and enjoy the beauty of it all, but we did find the trash, of course pla...

More
Second windrow - even more plastic
Today at around 15:00 hours, just an hour after we went for a swim, we came across another windrow and this one was even worst then the first one. Plastic was everywhere and in everything. We could only pick up few larger pieces and take photos and videos but it was really sad looking at all that mess we have created. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough photos of all that at this moment cause I was operating the ca...

More
Bermuda beach cleanup
Today we participated in two beach cleanups organized by Keep Bermuda Beautiful (KBB) with the help of volunteers from Marsh, IAS and Guy Carpenter. These beaches must be some of the most beautiful in the world, and at first look everything appears OK. Unfortunately, that statement is very far from the truth. I really did not expect to see this level of plastic pollution all the way out here in the middle of...

More
Bermuda's beautiful bays versus plastic - Part 2
Islands of Bermuda are located right on the edge of The North Atlantic Gyre which obviously is a major contributing factor to the amount of trash found on its beaches. What is interesting is that many Bermudians are not aware of this problem at all. Most people will tell you that the reason their beaches are so clean is because they have many organizations on the island that do beach clean ups. It is true, many...

More
Styrofoam glazed Mile Rock Beach in San Francisco
Today my friend and I went for a walk down to Mile Rock Beach at Land’s End in San Francisco and discovered that Styrofoam is pretty much part of the landscape now. Wherever I looked I saw Styrofoam tiny pieces stuck in between and under the rocks, in the sand and under various bushes and branches that are found on the beach. I have visually examined couple of areas and found that there were at list 2-3 visible p...

More
First windrow - Plastic, was everywhere!
The winds picked up yesterday in the afternoon and lasted throughout the night so we were not able to trawl. We drifted too far off the course and it took hours to get back where we left off. Today we came across our first windrow – basically a patch of trash combined with Sargassum (sea grass found all over the surface of the Sargasso Sea). Trash, mainly plastic, was everywhere! We picked up a few items and then ...

More
Nonsuch Island
Our friends from BIOS invited us on board of Spirit of Bermuda, a purpose-built sail training vessel based on civilian Bermudian-type schooners built in Bermuda by blacks and whites between 1810 and 1840. In 2009 Spirit participated in TALL SHIPS®ATLANTIC CHALLENGE. It was pretty impressive standing on its deck, it felt like going back in time. Today on board were also group of kids from a local public school to w...

More

Archive for February, 2010

Styrofoam glazed Mile Rock Beach in San Francisco

Feb 27th

Today my friend and I went for a walk down to Mile Rock Beach at Land’s End in San Francisco and discovered that Styrofoam is pretty much part of the landscape now. Wherever I looked I saw Styrofoam tiny pieces stuck in between and under the rocks, in the sand and under various bushes and branches that are found on the beach. I have visually examined couple of areas and found that there were at list 2-3 visible pieces for every square inch. I only found few larger pieces and that is because Styrofoam is very easily broken down by the elements. I wonder how much of it is around that we can’t even see with our naked eye and where are we heading with all this?

: Golden Gate Bridge

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

The Marine Mammal Center: “seals ingesting plastic”

Feb 20th

Posted by Ivan Martinetti in All posts

Today we made a short unplanned visit to The Marin Mammal Center in Marin County. The Center’s focus is on rescue and treatment of ill, injured, or orphaned marine mammals, which they ultimately hope to release back in to the wild. According to their research data plastic is commonly found in the stomachs of the treated mammals and in many cases around their necks and fins. If you have never been there before, you should check it out.

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

Ecological State of Plastic Montenegro

Feb 20th

Posted by Ivan Martinetti in All posts

Montenegro during January 2010 will definitely be remembered by incredible floods that have washed away incredible amounts of garbage, mostly plastic, and covered thousands of acres of cost lines of Skadar Lake, River Bojana and the Adriatic. This single event has caused more damage to the environment than any other event in the history of that country. The photos you are looking at are from the Bay of Kotor, one of main tourist destinations.