As humans, we sit on the top of the food chain, and because we too consume seafood, these very toxins will land on our dinner plate.
When Sea Dragon departed the bustling island of Bermuda for the geographic center of the gyre, the endless immensity of the sea quickly enveloped us. However, my initial dazzling impressions of swimming in the open blue with Shanley for the first time were soon punctuated by the plastic reality unfolding around us.
The middle of the ocean is one of the most remote and harshest environments on our planet. And yet we were constantly reminded of our human impact to this place as plastic crates, jugs, fishing gear, fenders, buoys, nets, and even a cruise ship dock line floated by at alarmingly consistent rates.
In fact, we dump up to twelve million tons of plastic into our oceans annually.iv Most of the visible marine debris is likely discarded from container ships, bulk carriers, and fishing fleets. But other sources of marine debris include beaches, flooded storm sewers, and riverine outputs. Some of this debris is at least recoverable, being large enough to lift out of the water.v
Even though we recovered lots of visible debris, stacking the stinky, barnacle-laden remnants onto Sea Dragon’s deck, we had actually come in search of the tiniest of manmade invaders: microplastics. And we were armed with a trawl to collect them. Our trawl consisted of eleven different nets stacked vertically one on top of the other, with their ends streaming behind like a tower of bridal veils. We deployed the trawl over the rail of Sea Dragon for one hour at a time, three times a day, for a total of eleven days.
Dr. Julia Reisser, lead oceanographer for The Ocean Cleanup and an emerging expert in microplastic pollution, oversaw the processing of each trawl. After each session she would use a hose to rinse the contents of the nets through a sieve and closely examine, label, and package the recovered samples for laboratory analysis.
The day we had reached the center of the gyre, and were therefore expecting the highest concentrations of plastic, I watched as Julia’s face furrowed into a mix of what must be complicated emotions: recognition that we had located the highest density of microplastics so far, the brunt of her research efforts, but also disgust that we had found so much.
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