Rapanui BlogMENS / WOMENS Rapanui Blog Latest A man called
Charles Moore takes a sailing short-cut across the doldrums in
1997 on a whim. He sailed into this region, called the North
Pacific Gyre and started to notice quite a lot of plastic litter
beside his boat – at the start, just small things: bottle tops,
bits of crisp packets, pen lids. Then it started to get
busier... bits of plastic, many of them small flakes like fish
food, in increasing concentrations. Until the density became so
great that there was plastic in the waters all around. “We were
puzzled as to how this plastic got out here. Then began a slow
sinking feeling, as we realised that something was very wrong
out here.” It took him seven full days of sailing to cross the
gyre, and during the countless miles, the plastic soup didn’t
dilute. Sadly this is not a children’s story, but real life:
right now there is a collection of plastic particles huge beyond
imagination, floating together in the Pacific. Almost a
generation ago NOAA scientists fo