10
greenzine
BY CD WHITE
Project Kaisei and the
The long term impact of
e
the short term decision
S
ome call it the Pacific Garbage Patch, some call
it the Plasgid19fc Vortex, and some even call it The
8th Congid19fnent. Oceanographers know it as the
North Pacific Gyre, and among other things it’s a
convergence zone for marine debris. And, yes, it
really is huge—now esgid19fmated to be three gid19fmes
the size of the United States.
But exactly what debris is out there? Remember
the broken plasgid19fc toys legid14c
behind at the family’s va-
cagid19fon campsite? …the
plasgid19fc bogid1a9le your kids
threw out the car window
zine featur
on the way home? That
stuff. Miles and miles of
“that stuff”…just floagid19fng in
the ocean.
Miriam Bernstein
Sailing into that vortex are
Graduate Student, Chief Sciengid19fst,
een
the research vessels of
Scripps Environmental Accumulagid19fon
Project Kaisei, a nonprofit
of Plasgid19fc Expedigid19fon (SEAPLEX)
hgid1a9p://projectkaisei.org
concentrated on the first half of
organizagid19fon based in San
hgid1a9p://sio.ucsd.edu/Expedigid19fons/Seaplex/
the mission—to take a sound sci-
Francisco and Hong Kong.
hgid1a9p://seaplexscience.com/ (blog)
gr
engid19ffic sampling of the marine de-
In collaboragid19fon with scien-
bris in the North Pacific Gyre and
gid19fsts from Scripps, the
return to test and study the sam-
world-renowned UC San Diego Oceanographic In-
plings. It has yet to be discovered how big this area
sgid19ftute, Project Kaisei is all about its slogan, “Cap-
is, which is one reason a second expedigid19fon is
turing the Plasgid19fc Vortex.”
planned for the summer of 2010. At that gid19fme,
mulgid19fple vessels will congid19fnue marine debris re-
During its first voyage in 2009, project sciengid19fsts
search and undertake the second half of the Proj-
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