(Frithjof)
Once more, I
am writing these lines on the way back to Aberdeen from one of my trips – a
research visit to San Diego State University in California, where I have been
collaborating with my long-time friend Carl J. Carrano ever since he moved
there in 2003, and where I have been an adjunct professor since 2013. Together
with his MSc student Teresa Tymon, we have been exploring halogen and trace
metal metabolism in giant kelp (Macrocystis)
since 2013[i].
But today, I
wanted to write about our activities to combat plastic pollution and to raise
public awareness about this problem. We – that is Teresa Tymon and Rubem
Miranda in Pacific Beach, San Diego, California, Vivian Louizidou on the Greek
island of Rhodes, and myself.
I woke up to
this problem in 1995, when I moved to the Station Biologique de Roscoff in
Brittany, France as an undergraduate research student, and when it was not yet
as present on the public mind as it is now. At that time, I was surveying the
population of an abundant brown seaweed, Pylaiella
littoralis, for pathogen outbreaks. During my weekly surveys, which
consisted of walking in the intertidal and on the shore around Roscoff for
about 2 hours at a time, I always took one bucket for my seaweed samples, and
another one or a trash bag for all the marine litter that I was picking up. I
continued this over my 6 years at Roscoff, until moving to California in
November 2001 as a postdoc. During these years, I must have collected several
cubic meters of marine litter from the Breton shore! It also struck me during
my investigations that tufts of algal filaments often contained small plastic
particles, in particular colored fibres of plastic (polypropylene or nylon)
ropes. Initially, they looked like unknown filamentous algae to me, but the sad
reality that this was an increasing amount of microplastic pollution soon
dawned on me.
(Click on the images for a full-screen, high-resolution view.
You can browse by using the cursor buttons.)
You can browse by using the cursor buttons.)
That was me collecting seaweeds and marine litter in Roscoff, November 1995
I continued
to clean beaches and the seabed (as a diver) in all my residences (and many of
the places that I have been visiting) since leaving Roscoff in 2001 –
California and Scotland. Most recently, I participated in a beach-cleaning day
organized by Rubem in Imperial Beach on March 24 this year – a coastal
community between San Diego and the Mexican border city of Tijuana. Besides
being a chemistry grad student, Teresa also works as a freelance artist, and
part of her artwork is produced from marine litter collected during such
events. In total, over 100 volunteers participated in the event. We collected
about 150 pounds of trash full of beach litter, all the material collected is
clean and storage by RouteUSA, in order to create art and increase awareness a
great way to bring attention for the cause.
Whatever was
suitable for the urban recycling program of San Diego was taken out, likewise
everything suitable for art work. Only about half of the litter collected ended
up going to landfill, with the remainder being put to recycling or re-use.
Carl Carrano in his lab at SDSU
Imperial Beach, San Diego
March 24
March 24
Beach cleaning event in Imperial Beach, San Diego, to which Teresa and Rubem
invited me to come along. The even was organized by Route USA, San
Diego Coastkeeper and sponsored by Sand Cloud, a San Diego-based company
which donates 10% of its profits for marine conservation activities.
Items recovered during a previous beach clean, on exhibit for today's event
Items recovered during a previous beach clean, on exhibit for today's event
Items
recovered during a previous beach clean, on exhibit for today's event.
The owner of the driving license has been located and the license will
be returned!
Imperial Beach Fishing Pier, commissioned in 1989
Volunteers signing up for today's beach clean
Volunteers signing up for today's beach clean
Teresa starting her work on a new piece of art from marine litter
Volunteers signing up for today's beach clean
Fishermen on the Imperial Beach Fishing Pier
Imperial Beach Fishing Pier
Surfers with the Islas Coronado (Mexico) in the background
Imperial Beach Fishing Pier
Imperial Beach - life guard jetski
Volunteers cleaning the beach
Wading birds and surfers against the backdrop of the Coronado Islands (Mexico)
Wading birds, Imperial Beach
Wading birds, Imperial Beach
One of the youngest beach cleaning volunteers today
Wading birds and Coronado Islands (Mexico)
Courtesy of Starbucks
Pelagophycus
porra (Elkhorn kelp), a subtidal kelp typical of deeper waters
(beneath 20 m, i.e. beneath the Macrocystis zone) off southern California
(beneath 20 m, i.e. beneath the Macrocystis zone) off southern California
An unfortunate pelican
View of the US-Mexican border
View of the US-Mexican border
View
of the US-Mexican border: the border wall is clearly visible, with the
city of Tijuana (Mexico) behind. In this region, the wall has existed
for many years - but it has not prevented the extensive trafficking of
drugs, weapons and humans across the border.
View
of the US-Mexican border: the border wall is clearly visible, with the
city of Tijuana (Mexico) behind. In this region, the wall has existed
for many years - but it has not prevented the extensive trafficking of
drugs, weapons and humans across the border.
California's Marine Protected Areas are world leading 
!
!
The stretch of coast and inland terrain between Imperial Beach and the
Mexican border is protected, including by the Tijuana Slough National
Wildlife Refuge and the Tijuana River Mouth State Marine Conservation
Area.
The Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, with the border and the city of Tijuana (Mexico) in the background
The
Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge, and encroaching "development"
in the background. Without legal protection and given the value of
coastal real estate in California, there is no doubt that this coastal
salt marsh would have been built up already.
Encroaching "development" of Imperial Beach on the western side of the
Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge
Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge
This is what a coastal salt marsh looks like after "development" - Imperial Beach
Imperial Beach
Loading the trash from the beach clean onto a pickup for transport back to Pacific Beach
and sorting there
and sorting there
On I-5, on the way back to Pacific Beach
BBQ at Adam's house in Pacific Beach prior to sorting the trash from the beach clean
The crew (minus Frithjof) with the trash collected from the beach
Sorting the trash from today's beach cleaning event
Happy End: this lizard had been accidentally collected from the beach in a pile of trash! Here we are releasing it in a suitable habitat...
We released the lizard in the vegetated strip on the left. Pacific Beach, San Diego
Farewell dinner in Pacific Beach
...and this was Teresa's farewell present for me!
Made from recycled materials, it will decorate my home in Scotland.
On this
occasion, I want to write some thoughts about a rather novel application for
plastic waste – including mixed plastic waste from beach clean-ups with a
certain fraction of sand or even tar (which is common on many beaches). The
latter can barely be recycled easily, unless considerable effort is made to
wash it. I
recently came across a very interesting concept from the Netherlands which I
believe is worth consideration for many coastal areas, but also the islands of
the world:
Using waste plastic for road surfacing is more durable than tar
(which obviously needs to be imported at a cost)! In remoter parts of India,
this has become a low-tech, low-cost solution for surfacing roads – and
eliminating the plastic waste problem at the same time. There is obviously a
huge need for road surfacing in the world over the foreseeable future - which
could swallow many years’ worth of recycled plastic. It would also reduce or
eliminate any need for transporting exporting collected plastic waste. Also
particularly attractive is that plastic containing sand particles collected
from beaches (such as discarded fishing gear) is perfectly suitable for this
purpose – so much better than dumping this in landfill.
(Rubem)
Our
objective with the beach clean-up is to promote awareness, inform the community
about the epidemic problem of marine litter, and create art with the material
we collected once clean. We choose Imperial Beach because this is considered
the most polluted beach in San Diego – besides plastic waste, traces of
hepatitis and other pathogens have been found in the water.
Since the
United Nations have called for a resolution and made a primary objective to
fight against ocean pollution, we have noted a trend on this matter, with the
media and organizations turning more attention to it. Here in California a law
against plastic bags was adopted recently, stipulating that consumes now have
to buy their plastic bags in supermarkets. Also, new regulations are being
proposed against plastic straws - businesses
will have to pay a fine up to U$1,000 if they offer plastic straws to the
consumer (unless requested).
Our project
uses art as a form to express the problem and the quantity of trash is found in
the oceans. We believe we can create a bigger impact in the society if we find
a way to give value to something that loses value if discarded inappropriately.
That’s why we also engage in ocean education in schools to teach the new
generations about consumption, waste, in order to avoid recyclable materials ending
up in landfills or, worse, in the ocean.
(Teresa)
I have been
working as a part time artist for about two years now and was thrilled when
Rubem came to me with his plans for Route USA, a non-profit organization that focuses
on beach clean-ups, education, and turning trash into artwork. From the onset of my art career I have been
dedicated to using recycled materials whenever possible. Many of my paintings are done on canvases and
wood that I find in the alleys of San Diego, so using trash collected from beaches
in my artwork is an exciting challenge for me that I am delighted to take
on. I aim to create pieces that
incorporate beach debris into my own painting style, sometimes without it being
obvious that it is even trash. By
creating sellable artwork from materials that would otherwise be waste, I hope
to raise awareness about the throw-away culture that we live in and encourage
others to be more conscious of the items they use and discard in their everyday
life.
One of Teresa's masterpieces, painted on recycled wood
One of Teresa's masterpieces, painted on recycled wood and using other recycled materials
One of Teresa's masterpieces, using recycled materials from cleaning beaches in California
One of Teresa's masterpieces, using recycled materials from cleaning beaches in California
One of Teresa's masterpieces, using recycled materials from cleaning beaches in California
(Vivian)
There is a Greek
song saying “We are two, we are three, we
are one thousand three…” It comes to my mind every time I am at one of the
two recycling boxes of Rhodes. It is a 20 sqm cube where people can recycle
plastic bottles, metal cans and glass bottles and get 0.03 euro for each and
either donate it for charity or use it as credit at a supermarket “AB
Vasilopoulos”. These boxes are my dream and my nightmare at the same time.
Many times I
load my car with huge bags full of recyclable materials staff from our small
family hotel “Vivian Studios” and when I arrive, the recycling boxes are either
full or out of order, or even worse, someone is already filling them up so I
have to try again in a couple of hours (or days). There is one – yes only one –
guy who goes 3-4 times a day to empty the boxes or unblock the ones that people
don’t know how to use. One is none. And 2 boxes are not enough for the whole of
the island with 120.000 permanent citizens and 2.5 million tourists.
However, in
March, our Municipality received 500 “Blue Bins” for all the neighbourhoods,
villages and some hotels of the island. Blue bins are for any recyclable
material, plastic, glass paper, metal etc. The sorting centre started operating
since then and day by day many of the citizens now know where to dispose their
recyclable products. In my opinion though, I strongly believe that the boxes
that give you a bit of money back would be the best motive for all citizens to
use it more. Especially in a still recovering Greek economy.
A few years
ago, if you were talking about environmental protection and recycling you were
risking to be characterized as “graphic”, “crazy ecologist” or a “hippie”…
Thank God this belongs to the past! The two became three and now we are more
than one thousand three! People are thirsty for protecting the environment, thirsty
for recycling and thirsty to reduce the use of plastic more than everything!
This is how a new campaign started. The “Refill Greece” project, where anyone
can turn his house or cafeteria or hotel or anything into a water refill
station. Therefore, we can use the same water bottle, with the option to refill
it – for free! - , instead of buying a new plastic one. The cool thing is that
you can download the app and you can see all the refill stations near you!
For more
info you can check out: www.antapodotiki.gr
#minutesbeachcleanup
At one of the municipal recycling stations in Rhodes, Greece
Recycling station at Vivian Studios, Ialysos, Rhodes
Vivian with collected trash after cleaning a beach in Rhodes
