By Gavin Feek

Where does that Arrowhead bottle that never quite made it into the garbage end up? That Mentos wrapper that’s half buried in the sand, or check out that mangled piece of plastic floating by you in the lineup. It kind of looks like a jellyfish. You know what you could do, you could freak your buddy out by throwing it at him. That piece of plastic, along with the condom wrapper you nearly stepped on under the pier, that’s really just a part of Southern California surfing. It’s part of the deal. Hey, that dyed brown hair net isn’t nearly as gross as the syringe your girl almost sat on in Huntington last year… The refuse on the beach doesn’t ever trump the swell in the water. Man, I’ve surfed Malibu the day after a rainstorm. The creek opens up and sends poop down from the hills and straight onto the nose of my board, what do I care about pantyhose on the pilings?

You ever seen Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds? If you haven’t, go rent it. For one, there’s a great scene where Tippi Hedren nearly gets her eyes poked out, and for another it’s educational. Except, you have to substitute every bird banding together and attempting to take over the world for a piece of trash. And then imagine that all these pieces of trash get together and decide to build their own island, larger then the state of Texas, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

This is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It sits relatively stationary, inside the center of the North Pacific Gyre (Or, in between California and Hawaii). What is The North Pacific Gyre? It’s a swirling vortex of ocean currents, comprising the North PacificCurrent to the north, the California Current to the east, the North Equatorial Current to the south, and the Kuroshio Current to the west. This mellow maelstrom gathers debris and draws it into the center, where the sluggish currents and listless winds allow the rubbish to assemble.

Quoting The Graduate here, “I want to say one word to you, just one word. Are you listening? Plastics.” Well, Mr. McGuire was right. And the steady boom of Plastics over the last fifty years has certainly contributed to the problem. The Garbage Patch has essentially become the plastic afterlife. Ninety per cent of The Garbage Patch is comprised of discarded plastic, which doesn’t biodegrade it photodegrades. Which means that the pieces keep breaking down until they’re tiny little particles that accidentally become part of the food chain.

Jellyfish ingest the plastic. So do sea turtles, and albatross. The Greenpeace report, "Plastic Debris in the World's Oceans" said at least 267 species -- including seabirds, turtles, seals, sea lions, whales and fish - are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of the marine debris.”

The Hawaiian Islands sit directly in the middle of the Pacific, and act as teeth of a gigantic oceanic comb, dragging all the plastics out of the water. When the Garbage Patch visits the waters around the Hawaiian Islands, not only do the beaches get flooded with plastics and garbage, but the waves can actually get directly affected as well. The lost fishing nets, or “Ghost Nets” that gather in the Garbage Patch, continue doing their job, even though they’ve been cut loose. Not only do they entangle marine animals, but they can actually entangle the ever fragile coral reefs -- dragging over them, breaking the coral heads off and reshaping the very waves themselves.

Captain Moore, a researcher upon the private vessel Alguita, has been studying the Garbage Patch for the last 10 years, and visits it regularly. He is the lead author of two scientific papers published in Marine Pollution Bulletin: A Comparison of Plastic and Plankton in the North Pacific Central Gyre and A Comparison of Neustonic Plastic and Zooplankton Abundance in Southern California’s Coastal Waters. His 1999 study shocked the scientific world when it found 6 times more plastic fragments by weight in the central Pacific than the associated zooplankton. His second paper found that plastic outweighs plankton by a factor of 2.5 in the surface waters of Southern California.

Captain Moore discovered the Garbage Patch, accidentally, while returning from a yacht race in 1997. "There were shampoo caps and soap bottles and plastic bags and fishing floats as far as I could see. Here I was in the middle of the ocean, and there was nowhere I could go to avoid the plastic."

Captain Moore sent me an email from Japan, where he considers the debris “as thick as it gets”. Styrofoam is proving to be his newest concern... “Check out the picture from Hakodate, Hokkaido. It's like iceberg bits with the snowcapped peaks in the background. It breaks into tiny pellets and is the most common contaminant on our beaches, with more buried in the sand than on the surface. This light stuff is like life preservers for the rest of the sand and increases erosion by the waves we like to surf.”

Feeling hopeless yet? Overwhelmed? Well don’t. Because Captain Moore then went on to mention scoring some waves in Kamogawa, with the founder of Surfrider Japan. So if you’re getting frustrated by the idea of all of this and you really want to help… it’s easy.

Go for a surf.

Getting to the ocean and seeing the pollution on our beaches first hand, is a major step in the right direction. One of my favorite parts of a surf session is getting back to the car and taking my wettie off. Not only are the people around me usually gasping because I’m flashing them, but because of all the trash falling out of my suit. Grab that rubbish out of the water and toss it (disclaimer: this does NOT include razor blades, glass, syringes, or anything that might’ve floated in Malibu Creek - please alert the lifeguards, or proper authorities of these). Do whatever you can to make sure that garbage finds its way into the appropriate can. Always, always recycle plastic. This is the best way to keep it out of our oceans. If you know of someone who does not recycle plastic, help them start it up or let them hear about it.

Join Surfrider or Heal The Bay. Volunteer for a beach cleanup. Any ONE piece of plastic that you pick up could potentially save the lives of many marine animals. At the end of his email Captain Moore asked me to mention boycotting any company that puts food in styrofoam. Not only does it end up all over our beaches and waters, but styrene carries carcinogens that get into our food.

If you happen to be someone who has extra money, you can donate straight to Captain Moore’s project on his website www.algalita.org. You can also contact www.surfrider.org or www.healthebay.org to donate directly to them.

You’ve already read the article, now talk about it. Spread the word. Most people don’t even know this problem exists. There are so many environmental issues out there today, that it’s easy for another one to just get swept up in the mix. One of the many problems that I’ve found, while researching this article, is a lack of photographs. It’s hard to get an accurate picture of the problem, because much of the garbage rests just below the ocean’s surface. We see lots of scattered clumps of junk on the surface, but no giant trash monolith to hasten our sense of urgency. Unfortunately, below sea level is where this garbage is most harmful.

Personally, I think we’re all daredevils, every one of us. We’re surfers outside of the second largest city in the country. In Los Angeles County, 10,000,000 people currently reside, and all of the runoff goes straight into our playground. Whether you pick it up or not, we’re all Trash Surfers. And personally, I’m proud of it. The city should be tickled pink to have surfers out there, like gargoyles watching the waters and cleaning the lineup. Even if you’re not picking up trash, in my humble opinion, just being out there shows faith. But I believe how we choose to live life, is reflected in our surfing. And who doesn’t want to get better?



Gavin Feek, the author of this story, lives and surfs in Santa Monica.  Everyone here at Surfwise give him our sincerest thanks for contributing this story.  You may contact him by e-mail for any further questions.


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