sixty-foot catamaran, Plastiki, constructed from about 12,500 discarded
plastic bottles and equipped with sustainable solar panels, arrived in
Sydney, Australia on Monday, July 26 following a four-month voyage that
began in San Francisco, USA. Expedition leader and environmentalist
David de Rothschild, said the journey was motivated by a 2006 United
Nations report warning of the perils of plastic in the world’s seas as
it stated that every square mile of the oceans contained 46,000 pieces
of floating plastic debris.
Voyaging 8,000 nautical miles, Mr.
de Rothschild along with 5 other crew members endured storms and other
challenges on the journey. They also witnessed first-hand the North
Pacific gyre, a place where some 3.5 million tons of discarded plastic
has gathered in an enormous current and clustered together in a swirling
mass of waste the size of Texas, USA.
Saying that this debris
now represents a real threat to marine life, World Wildlife Fund Policy
Manager for Marine Species Lydia Gibson stated, “Plastic garbage, which
decomposes very slowly, is often mistaken for food by marine animals.
concentrations of plastic material, particularly plastic bags, have
been found blocking the breathing passages and stomachs of many marine
species, including whales, dolphins, seals, puffins and turtles.
six-pack rings for drink bottles and cans can also choke marine
animals.” As one example of the unimaginably horrific effects of this
marine waste, the stomach of a rare eight-meter Bryde's whale discovered
perished on an Australian beach was found to be jammed with almost six
square meters of plastic, including supermarket bags, food packaging,
three large sheets of plastic and fragments of garbage bags.
returned Plastiki will be on display for a month at the Australian
National Maritime Museum where the crew members will hold public
speaking events to raise awareness of the increasingly dire effects of
plastic waste in the ocean.
Mr. de Rothschild said, “The plan is
to create a global oceans exhibit that can showcase not only the issue
of throw-away plastics but really about nurturing and re-evaluating our
oceans... our most precious of ecosystems.”
Our admiring salute,
Mr. de Rothschild and crew on the success of your eco-adventure as we
also thank World Wildlife Fund for their caring efforts on behalf of
May more and more people become aware and
motivated toward actions that consider all lives on our shared
planetary home. Supreme Master Ching Hai has often spoken of the
importance of our care for other beings in a larger picture of global
balance, as during a July 2008 videoconference in Formosa (Taiwan).