Ocean Clean-up Effort Drags 5-Ton 'Ghost Net' of Abandoned Fishing Gear From the Pacific 'Garbage Patch' as Part of Huge Plastic Haul

Ocean Voyages Institute says it completed a 25-day cleanup mission in the Pacific at the end of last month

It says it collected a total of roughly 40 tons of plastic, including huge ‘ghost net’ of entangled fishing gear

Abandoned fishing gear is responsible for deaths of 380,000 animals yearly, according to the non-profit

A non-profit organization has scraped more than 40 tons of fishing nets and consumer plastics from a region of the Pacific Ocean that’s home to a massive debris field known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The haul includes everything from beer bottles and children’s toys to enormous ‘ghost nets’ – the abandoned fishing gear that can drift at sea for decades, trapping more garbage and marine wildlife in its path.

After a 25-day clean-up mission, Ocean Voyages says it captured thousands of pounds of plastic waste, including a five-ton ghost net.

The group plans to return next year to continue work at the site over a three-month period.

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A non-profit organization has scraped more than 40 tons of fishing nets and consumer plastics from a region of the Pacific Ocean, including a 5-ton ‘ghost net’

Ocean Voyages conducted drone surveys in the Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone – also known as the Pacific Gyre – between California and Hawaii to assess the debris ahead of recovery.

The team also recruited yachts and ships to tag ghost nets with satellite trackers.

‘Satellite technology played a key role in our recovery effort, offering an innovative solution to finding areas of dense plastic pollution,’ said Mary Crowley, Founder and Executive Director of OV Institute.

‘The nets and other debris are signs of the proliferating plastic pollution that poses threats to marine life, coastal environments, shipping, fisheries, wildlife and our health.’

After a 25-day clean-up mission, Ocean Voyages says it captured thousands of pounds of plastic waste, including a five-ton ghost net. The group plans to return next year to continue work at the site over a three-month period

The haul includes everything from beer bottles and children’s toys to enormous ‘ghost nets’ – the abandoned fishing gear that can drift at sea for decades, trapping more garbage and marine wildlife in its path

The clean-up relied on the sailing cargo ship, S/V KWAI and the plastic survey vessel AVEIA.

Following this year’s success, the group now says it’s planning to return in 2020 to tackle even more ocean garbage, this time with an additional vessel equipped with specially-adapted fishing gear to scoop up plastic.

According to OV Institute, roughly  600,000 tons of abandoned gear ends up in the oceans each year. 

And, about 380,000 marine animals are killed every year as a result.   

‘It is very disturbing to be sailing through what was only decades ago a pristine ocean wilderness and find it filled with our all-too-familiar garbage,’ Crowley says.

Between Hawaii and California is world’s largest ocean plastic zone.

‘Satellite technology played a key role in our recovery effort, offering an innovative solution to finding areas of dense plastic pollution,’ said Mary Crowley, Founder and Executive Director of OV Institute. The team conducted drone surveys and teamed up with yachts and ships to tag ghost nets

The clean-up relied on the sailing cargo ship, S/V KWAI and the plastic survey vessel AVEIA. Following this year’s success, the group now says it’s planning to return in 2020 to tackle even more ocean garbage, this time with an additional vessel equipped with specially-adapted fishing gear to scoop up plastic

‘Urgent action is needed at all levels: curtailing the manufacture of throwaway plastics, preventing plastic trash from entering the oceans, and enlisting the public, corporations, and the maritime industry in education, prevention, innovation and massive cleanup efforts,’ Crowley said. 

‘The question is, are we ready to make it a priority to protect 72 percent of the planet?’

The non-profit teamed up with OV Institute collaborated with Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner of the University of Hawaii for the effort to coordinate the FloatEco Project.

FloatEco, funded by NASA, is studying the processes that control the dispersal and accumulation of marine debris, along with the biological processes at play in the unique ecosystem.

The team is also planning to conduct smaller scale cleanup missions in the years to come in addition to their bigger efforts. 

WHAT DOES DEEP-SEA DEBRIS DATABASE REVEAL ABOUT OCEAN PLASTIC POLLUTION?

Plastic pollution is a scourge that is ravaging the surface of our planet. Now, the polluting polymer is sinking down to the bottom of the ocean. 

The deepest part of the ocean is found in the Mariana Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean, to the east of the Mariana Islands. It stretches down nearly 36,100 feet (11,000 metres) below the surface.

One plastic bag was found 35,754 feet (10,898 metres) below the surface in this region, the deepest known piece of human-made pollution in the world. This single-use piece of plastic was found deeper than 33 Eiffel towers, laid tip to base, would reach.

Whilst the plastic pollution is rapidly sinking, it is also spreading further into the middle of the oceans. A piece of plastic was found over 620 miles (1,000 km) from the nearest coast – that’s further than the length of France.

The Global Oceanographic Data Center (Godac) of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (Jamstec) launched for public use in March 2017. 

In this database, there is the data from 5,010 different dives. From all of these different dives, 3,425 man-made debris items were counted. 

More than 33 per cent of the debris was macro-plastic followed by metal (26 per cent), rubber (1.8 per cent), fishing gear (1.7 per cent), glass (1.4 per cent), cloth/paper/lumber (1.3 per cent), and ‘other’ anthropogenic items (35 per cent).

It was also discovered that of all the waste found, 89 per cent of it was designed for single-use purposes. This is defined as plastic bags, bottles and packages. The deeper the study looked, the greater the amount of plastic they found. 

Of all man-made items found deeper than 20,000 feet (6,000 metres), the ratios increased to 52 per cent for macro-plastic and 92 per cent for single-use plastic.

The direct damage this caused to the ecosystem and environment is clear to see as deep-sea organisms were observed in the 17 per cent of plastic debris images taken by the study.