Treehugger covers Junk

One of our favorite green rags, Treehugger, wrote a nice piece here on Junk last week.

With one correction - while we were 6 on the ORV Alguita's January Gyre crossing, there will only be two intrepid sailors on this voyage, Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal. The nature of this undertaking calls for a light, tight crew.


Anna Cummins will be maintaining PR and blog from land, and praying for Junk's speedy return.

From the comments on the Treehugger post, it seems there is still quite a bit of confusion about the size of the Gyre (twice the size of Texas, the US, or the Moon?) as well as the feasibility of cleanup. There has been an explosion of recent press about the Gyre, and with it, many myths are perpetuated.

This is part of our mission: to debunk the many urban legends floating around, and to bring people the straight junk, so we can stop junk at the source. Read more!

The bottle collection begins

Thanks to the incredible generosity of the Burbank Recycling Center, we picked up our first couple van loads of plastic bottles last week!

2,000 down. 18,000 to go.....














We connected with the Burbank Recycling Center through our friend Mark Cappellano, who introduced us last month to director Geoff Folsom and recycling coordinator Kreigh Hampel.














Here's Marcus, in deep conversation with Geoff about plastic waste.

Talking trash with these two was a whirlwind "recycling 101" - both are walking encyclopedias of all things recyclable. And definitely on the same sustainability page.

They stepped up BIG time to support "Message in a Bottle", offering to donate all 20,000 bottles for the project, putting us in touch with media and school contacts, and even getting their hands dirty with us.

















Their very patient staff emptied container after container of bottles for us to sort through - we can only use bottles that held carbonated drinks, or thick plastic bottles like Gatorade.





Seeing the amount of water bottles compared to other drinks was pretty incredible, a good 80-90%. We are a without a doubt a thirsty bunch, and have swallowed the clever marketing gimmicks of the bottled water industry hook line and sinker.



Sorting through these all will take some time....Geoff and Kreigh will be seeing quite a bit of us in the coming weeks! Read more!

JUNK gets some local press

Our first writeup in the Long Beach Press-Telegram - reporters were on hand Thursday afternoon to see the spectacle of an old Cessna Fuselage deposted on the Aquarium's front lawn.


On Thursday, Marcus and Joel picked up the fuselage - what will be their dwelling place for a month and a half - from an airplane boneyard in Palm Dale.
















After an arduous two hour effort loading the 400 pound relic in the sweltering desert heat, the plane was safely delivered to the Aquarium. Next week, were hoping to pick up our first van full of plastic bottles from the Burbank Recycling Center.

Let the building begin....... Read more!

JUNK to be built at Aquarium of the Pacific!

We're thrilled to announce that the Aquarium of the Pacific has generously offered a space on their front lawn to build "Junk", our plastic bottle raft!

As an added educational opportunity, the Aquarium invited AMRF to display "Fluke", another plastic bottle craft built by Dr. Marcus Eriksen, with students from the Environmental Charter High School. The image here shows Marcus and Aquarium staff in front of Fluke.


With daily visits to the Aquarium of 6,000-7,000 thousand people, this venue will provide tremendous visibility for the project, as well the opportunity to share AMRF's research with the public.

Special thanks to Dr. Jerry Schubel, President and CEO, Erica Noriega, Special Events Manager, and Michael Kent, Manager and Security, for their time, and valuable partership. Read more!

Message in a Bottle

Building on the tremendous momentum of our recent voyage across the North Pacific Gyre, The Algalita Marine Research Foundation is planning another epic sailing journey from Los Angeles back to Hawaii....


On a raft built of 20,000 plastic bottles.

The journey is part 2 of a 3-phase project to raise awareness about the mounting issue of plastic debris in the ocean:

PART 1: A 4,200 mile Trans-Pacific voyage aboard the ORV Alguita, to research plastic marine debris;


PART II: Building a boat dubbed "Junk" out of 20,000 plastic bottles, and sailing from Los Angeles to Hawaii; (image here shows an earlier raft, "Plastic Poison", built by Dr. Eriksen with volunteers from Turning the Tide in Juneau, Alaska)

PART III: Riding/rafting from Vancouver to Mexico on two amphibious bikes, to give presentations and distribute ocean samples relating to plastic debris.



THE TEAM:
Here we are, from left to right: Joel Paschal, Dr. Marcus Eriksen, and Anna Cummins.


Marcus and Anna met Joel aboard the ORV Alguita, on our journey from Hawaii to Los Angeles, through the North Pacific Gyre.


Dr. Eriksen is AMRF Director of Research and Education, Anna works as Education Adviser for AMRF, as well as running Bring Your Own, and Joel, former NOAA marine debris researcher/diver, is heading up the raft construction and coordinating our footage. Yes, a documentary may be in the works...... Read more!