Ben Lecomte has undertaken an epic journey through the Pacific Garbage Patch. Lecomte’s goal is to document and clean-up one of the largest known oceanic garbage dumps that spans from California to Japan.
To do so, he is swimming 300 miles of the “Eastern Patch,” between California and Hawaii with camera and crew to collect and photograph the garbage and debris he finds along the way. So far, he and his team have been surprised by the amount of garbage as well as the size of the plastic debris. In the HufPost, Ben describes how marine life hover around larger plastic items and create a mini ecosystem. Aquatic life does not discern the differences between plastic and organic. Experts estimate that 8,000,000 metric tons of plastic enter the ocean every year.
He also observes sea life eating and ingesting debris that includes balloon and balloon pieces, as well as large plastics discarded by fishing vessels, and human debris from land. Ingestion of debris is one of the largest issues we at Balloon Brigade want to remedy by removing and preventing Balloons from landing in the ocean.
Read more about Ben by visiting his website.
See what he sees by following him on instagram.
Help protect our oceans by properly disposing of your garbage, including celebratory balloons. Please deflate and put them in a garbage bin or store them for re-use. As we say at Balloon Brigade, #alwayscatchneverrelease #celebrateresponsibly
