The ocean comprises nearly 71 percent of the Earth's surface and contains 97 percent of the planet's water, our ocean, rivers and lakes play an integral role in various ecosystems including climate and weather. Did you know the ocean supports the life of nearly 50 percent of all species on Earth and helps sustain that life by providing 20 percent of the animal protein and five percent of the total protein in the human diet?
Yet mankind has already caused nearly irreversable damage to the ocean and unless we act soon, our lives will change forever. The cause of the problem is plastics. you see, plastics never break down molecularly, they simply hang around forever. Plastic waste congregates (or is transported by currents) primarily to calm spots in the ocean known as Gyres. A Gyre is located at the center of two counter-rotating ocean currents, and there are five such Gyres in the world's oceans.
The North Pacific Gyre (closest to the continental U.S.), receives plastic waste from the Western United States, Japan, Hawaii, and Eastern Russia, all of it migrating on currents to the center of the North Pacific Gyre. As plastic rubs against itself and other substances, it becomes ground down into smaller and finer pieces. Depending on weight and density, these pieces are suspended in water at various depths. Plastic is now affecting world marine life on many levels and it will not go away.
Hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic products have found their way into our ocean, and have been mistaken for food by many forms of wildlife. At right are the actual skeletal remains of a blue footed booby. Living in the vicinity of the North Pacific Gyre, these birds have a better chance of selecting something plastic to eat, than actual food. They are often fed plastic as chicks in the nest, and continue to ingest plastic items until they eventually die from toxic poisoning. The plastic problem also extends below the ocean's surface, where water columns over a thousand feet deep contain "plastic soup" in various densities. Here plastic becomes a portion of a fish or mammal's daily diet, as they unknowingly ingest fine particles that will affect both their bodies, and that of their offspring. In time, some of these plastic ingesting fish will be consumed by humans - thus completing the circle.
It has been suggested that we can never clean all the plastic out of our ocean, but that statement we cannot live with. The Blue Pearl Project was conceived with a solution in mind, and we will not stop until change is effected. By enlisting the aid of major corporations we plan to develop and implement multiple strategies to remove plastic waste from the ocean and prevent further contamination. You can help too, by raising awareness of the plastic problem, and spreading the word about The Blue Pearl Project. A percentage of all Blue Pearl Enterprise sales is donated to the Blue Pearl Project North Pacific Gyre clean up. Donations made to Blue Pearl Project - Save the Ocean will go towards research to rid the ocean of plastics and help to clean up the ocean. Together we can make a difference!
"If we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed. And if we are not willing to change, we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect." - Jacques Yves Cousteau
