Junk Science
An
unusual boat named "Junk" recently set sail from Long Beach,
California bound for Hawaii. It’s a small craft made of old sailboat masts,
fishing net, 15,000 plastic bottles and the cabin of a 1961 Sesna.
The mission is to inspire more people to go green. "I
wanted something that was waterproof, that was light-weight and could
withstand lots of banging around the ocean," said Dr. Marcus Eriksen
of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation.
Eriksen pulled a sample from the North Pacific Gyre, in
an area known as the "Great Pacific Garage Patch." "It’s
a rotating mass of water, like a giant toilet bowl that never flushes.
It’s twice as big as the United States, and it’s full of a confetti of
plastic that coasts the surface," explained Dr. Eriksen. The plastic
confetti inspired the voyage. His team assembled the craft in Long Beach
and students from three high schools helped. Read
the story.
