RUGGED COAST RESEARCH SOCIETY - OCEAN PLASTIC
Karen Martin
Talon – one of our founders and resident adventurer recently had an amazing opportunity to do a photo shoot with the Rugged Coast Research Society. Rugged Coast is a new non-profit focused on researching and restoring remote coastal habitats along the B.C. coast….ie how much ocean garbage is getting washed ashore, what is it, what kind of damage is it causing and finding funding for clean-up and removal of the garbage.
The 7-man crew spent 5 days working their way along the coast from Port Hardy to north of Rivers Inlet.
They accessed remote and often inaccessible shoreline to document the volume and types of garbage, and develop mitigation plans.
Unfortunately, the greatest volume of garbage was Styrofoam. Styrofoam is a killer people! It’s a petroleum based product that breaks up into tiny little floating balls that fish and birds gobble up because they think it’s food.
Here’s a simple example; you drop a Styrofoam cup on the street, that cup washes down into a storm drain and out into the ocean where it gradually breaks down and never disappears!
Dafne from North Pacific Kelp has a great way of being proactive about Styrofoam. If she’s given a drinking cup or a take-out container that's made of Styrofoam, she simply refuses to take it and asks the retailer for a recyclable container. This is one small way that we people here on shore can advocate for a change that will have a positive impact on our oceans!
Shout out to the Rugged Coast Research Society for making us aware of what’s happening on our Coast!!
