In June, the only all-women team in this year’s Great Pacific Race will attempt to break a world speed record on their human-powered trip across 2,400 miles of the Pacific Ocean. Rowing day and night in two-hour shifts, the international team of environmental activists will record their journey through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Update: The Ripple Effect team was forced to retire from the race during the first week after encountering high winds and waves.
Great Pacific Garbage Patch
While most people have heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), very few understand what it is. When this garbage gyre in the western Pacific was first discovered in the 1990s, many people imagined a vast floating island. That fanciful image was eventually replaced with the less easily visualized idea of a microplastic soup.
Today, scientists still struggle to describe the GPGP, even as the data to understand it improves. A recent study concluded that the “patch” is at least four times larger than previously supposed. The pollution zone is roughly the size of the western United States, more than 600,000 square miles. By mass, nearly half of the waste is fishing nets. Microplastics make up only about 8 percent of the mass of the waste but comprise over 90 percent of the pieces of plastic floating in this zone. Due to their small size, microplastics are much harder to remove from the water than bulkier items. They also can enter the food chain, posing a health risk to sea life and even humans.
Ripple Effect
The all-female crew of the international Ripple Effect rowing team intends to use the attention generated by the Great Pacific Race to illuminate deteriorating conditions in the Pacific Ocean. During the race, they will record what they see as the boat passes through the GPGP, sharing their discoveries online. People following along at home will see for themselves what tons of floating plastic garbage accumulating hundreds of miles from shore looks like.
In addition to documenting what they find at sea, each team member is promoting one local policy change on land. In this way, they hope to demonstrate that individuals can effect change on issues that can seem overwhelming. Their personal causes include support for a carbon tax in Washington state, rainforest preservation, fundraising for an organization that helps women in Afghanistan explore the outdoors, and converting Wimbledon, England, into a plastic-free community.
Because the GPGP exists so far from land, it’s easy to ignore. The team hopes their narrative will help people realize how damaging plastic is to the natural world and galvanize them to action. If it works, it won’t be a moment too soon. The discovery of a plastic bag at the bottom of the Marianas Trench is evidence that the problem of plastic pollution goes much deeper than what we can see at the surface.
