Last month Maui Surfer Girls helped sponsor an event to raise money for the Gyre Cleanup Project through Environmental Coalition Organization. Please check out their site and get involved!!
Our friend Rich Owen founded this non-profit on Earth Day of 2008. He's an avid scuba diver that could not consciously sit back and witness the degradation of our oceans without doing something about it. You can feel his zesty passion and drive to take action each time he speaks out about the horrors of plastic waste floating North of the Hawaiian Islands. So Rich has founded ECC, which is pioneering the largest marine pollution cleanup and restoration project in history!
What is the ocean gyre in the North Pacific?
A gyre is an accummulation of plastic debris that has collected in a vortex of Pacific ocean currents north of the Hawaiian Island chain. Scientist have estimated approximently 3.5 million tons of plastic in the ocean today - in which this ocean gyre spans the size of Texas! Some ocean scientists believe the clean up is impossible, but ECC wants to prove them wrong and do everything humanly possible to clean up the sludgy mess of styrofoam, plastics debris like bottles, ropes, lighters, etc. which is contaminating the entire food chain!
To me, the most stunning image in Rich's presentation at Iao Theatre about the Gyre clean up, which illustrated this heartbreaking ocean disaster, was a photo of a birds skeleton with an intact plastic bottle jammed inside of it's rib cage.
These plastics are starving birds, turtles, fish, and other marine animals. Not to mention it's toxins leeching in the fish we eat, poisoning us!
To accomplish this massive, vital ocean clean up project - it will take all our resources to come together. If anyone could coordinate this effort it is Rich! Please support his non-profit with your generous gifts of money, networking, or time helping this cause! Donate Here to the Environmental Cleanup Coalition!
Let's save our ocean for generations to enjoy and sustain our lives from! Every surfer who enjoys the ocean, should be aware of this plastic toxic waste dump in the Pacific Ocean and take immediate action -- for future generations of surfers, fish, birds, turtles, dolphins, and on and on!!
To be informed about this issue check out these articles:
Plastic Killing Fields
Plastic Debris Rivers To Sea
Trashed: Across the Pacific Ocean
Voyage of the Junk
Horrendous Images from the Pacific Ocean:
