Q&A with Matthew Rutherford
- X Magazine
- Mar 20, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 23, 2021
Sailing the seas to research and raise awareness of ocean plastic and climate change.
Interview by Evangeline Modell
Q: What is the Pacific plastic expedition?
A: I created the Ocean Research Project in August of 2012. In 2013 we left on our first research expedition. We went to sea to map out the eastern side of the North Atlantic Garbage Patch. The Atlantic is also full of plastic trash and the eastern side of it was unmapped at the time. This was an opportunity to fill in the last blank spot on the map for the Atlantic garbage patch. After 70 days at sea, we mapped it out.
I wanted to continue our research in the Pacific, but we didn't have a boat on the West Coast. I convinced a boat company to let us take the first built Harbor 29 sailboat from San Francisco to Japan non-stop in an effort to do ocean plastics research.
The garbage patch regions are associated with dominant high-pressure, which means light winds and doldrums. Below these high-pressure regions are trade winds, winds that almost always blow from the same direction. What I wanted to know was how were the dominant winds and currents in the trade wind regions moving plastic trash from the main garbage patches to other parts of the ocean? We were also working with Japanese scientists at the University of Tokyo that study pollutants found in micro plastics.
Q: What did you find out?
A: The trade winds (and associated currents) can act as conveyor belts moving plastics from a garbage patch to an area less likely to be exposed to micro plastics. In other words, micro plastics are everywhere. The Japanese scientists found carcinogenic pollutants in our samples. A couple years ago some of them published a paper about it using our samples and other samples. We were co-authored in the paper.
Q: Why is this important?
A: It's important to understand the movements of micro plastics from one region of an ocean to another.
The fish in the open ocean eat the plastics and absorb the cancer-causing pollutants into their muscle tissue. We eat the fish and end up eating our own pollutants. It's ironic to say the least.
Q: Can you tell us about a moment in your trip when you saw the impact of plastic pollution?
A: In 2011 I left Annapolis on a sailboat in an attempt to become the first person in history to complete a non-stop single-handed circumnavigation of North and South America. After spending 309 days alone at sea and sailing over 27,077 miles I completed the circumnavigation. While at sea I was usually dragging two fishing lines at different depths with different lures. I was living off of freeze-dried food and any fresh food was a treat to say the least. Let's say it's around 5 or 6pm and I'm starting to feel hungry. I had to pump a manual watermaker to turn saltwater into freshwater, it took a good 30 minutes to make enough water to rehydrate the freeze-dried food. I didn't really feel like pumping the watermaker for the millionth time or eating the basic-tasting freeze dried food. All of a sudden you hear your fishing reel buzzing, line is going out, a fish is on! Your excitement takes over and you jump out into the cockpit and start to reel in your fresh dinner. The fish doesn't seem to be fighting much, but it's heavy so you still feel confident. Finally, you reel in your lure and realise you didn't catch a fish, you caught a piece of plastic trash. This happened over and over and over again. I caught way more plastic trash than fish. As you can imagine it p****d me off and made me a bit depressed that we have trashed our oceans so badly. That's when I decided that if I survive this trip, I'm going to start an ocean research organisation and do something about this issue.
Q: What needs to be done now to reduce ocean plastic pollution?
A: The battle is here on land. All plastic is made on land and the plastic that has made it out to sea is nearly impossible to clean up. I know there have been some high-profile organisations out there claiming they can clean up the plastic trash in the ocean but it's just snake oil. They raise huge funding, get huge PR from major media outlets and their designs have failed over and over again. It's a lost cause which is a hard pill to swallow.
Q: So, what can be done?
A: Roughly half the plastic trash in the ocean comes from one time use plastics. You go into a convenience store and buy a cup of coffee (or maybe tea in your case), you stir your coffee with a little black straw often referred to as a stir stick. You will use that plastic item for 10 seconds of your life. That little plastic straw will still be here on earth after you’re dead, your kids are dead, your grandkids, etc. We are making one time use items from a material that is meant to last for hundreds of years. Why are we doing this? Because it's cheap and convenient and we love cheap and convenient. The best thing a person can do in the short term is reduce their usage of one time use plastics. That's not going to solve all of the problems, but it's a good start.
Outside of that, we need to develop cheaper methods of creating bioplastics like PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate – biodegradable polyesters).
Q: Do you have any projects or trips coming up?
A: Once we get our new research vessel finished, we will head back to the Arctic in 2022. We are mostly doing research related to climate change these days, but we still collect and analyse micro plastic in the Arctic. We just spent two weeks at a lab looking at some of our Arctic samples and found tons of plastic fibres in every single sample.
Q: Where can our readers find out more information about you, your trips, and Save The Seas?
A: Ocean Research Project has Facebook and Instagram along with a YouTube channel that I’m starting to add more content to. There is also the website www.oceanresearchproject.org
To find out more about Save Our Seas visit: https://saveourseas.com
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