Project Goals and Benefit

Specific goals:

• We will be studying and sampling and documenting an area never before studied, in a location further west than ever before.
• Obtain video documentation of marine life ingesting plastic, from filter feeding pelagic jellies to larger animals including game fish. Therefore providing documented proof of the increasing rate of plastic moving through our food chain compared to previous studies.
• Videotape a documentary of all aspects of the 2 month voyage, covering the scientific study as well as the human perspective, bringing awareness and creating dialogue about the plastic garbage clogging our oceans.
• During the taping, I will be answering questions about the effects and origins of the plastic; what is it, where it comes from, and how it is affecting the ocean and our lives.
• A children’s book is also planned using hi-res digital images with cartoon characters overlay. This project is in collaboration with my brother, the creative designer for Peter Pauper Press in Connecticut. The details of the story line will be subject to the voyage details and wild life encounters.

Methods to achieve goals:

As an already accepted returning crewman, and underwater videographer of 6 years with over 3000 dives with a video camera, I hope to use my skill and this opportunity get underwater video evidence of proof that the plastic is being ingested by marine life. Diving night and day within the gyre, I will obtain footage of animals in their environment previously seen by only a few.

Environmental Benefit:

This project will bring critical awareness to the serious issue of plastics in our oceans on several levels. Plastics in our oceans are destroying the marine life from the bottom up by poisoning the water with toxins at the molecular level to being mistaken for food by fish, directly entering our food supply.

The greater awareness to the affects of plastic will lead to the changes needed within our society and business practices regarding the manufacturing, use and disposal of plastics in our daily lives.
This project will reach out to several demographics regarding this problem from young children to adults.

Significance of project:

The importance of generating awareness of this issue cannot be debated. At the current rate of increased plastic build up in the gyre and rate of toxins released by the plastic, leaves little time to find a solution before irreversible damage is done to our global marine food supply and ocean health.
The severity of this issue can really be seen when comparing what I witness in 2002, of pelagic filter feeders ingesting plastic, to the recent reports of plastic found in fish large enough for human consumption.