My home for 5 days

Plastic Bottles from Coca Cola Washed Up on the Beach

Sailing past Caernarvon Castle

I've just had an awesome 5 days sailing round Anglesey doing my Competent Crew sailing certificate.  I discovered I don't get seasick - which is a relief.   I loved learning about how to use the wind to travel, not relying on fuel.  I also discovered that sailing has a whole language of it's own.  We saw porpoises, seals, cormorants and other sea birds AND a lot of floating plastic, particularly bottles - coke bottles.

You may be aware that there are various petitions going on to get Coca Cola to take more responsibility for the billions of plastic bottles they produce every year.  They claim to use recycled plastic, but the fact is it's only about 6%.  Plastic is designed to never break down, and yet much of it is only for single use.  Only about 10% of plastic is recycled due to the cost and difficulties of separating it.  The remainder is sent to landfill although much escapes and ends up floating downhill into the sea.  In countries where there are no rubbish collections, the plastic just piles up in the environment, particularly on beaches.

Once in the sea it is battered constantly by the waves, affected by UV radiation and breaks down into ever smaller and smaller pieces - what we call micro plastic which gets mixed up with the plankton floating on the ocean surface.  Plankton is the food source for all life in the sea.  To make matters worse this plastic acts as a sponge for the synthetic chemicals washed into the sea - PCB's, flame retardants, dioxins etc - and is eaten by fish, birds and sea mammals.  The micro plastic is now becoming so small, (added to by micro beads in beauty products and fibers from washing 'fleece' type clothing) that it is passing through the digestive systems of fish and finding it's way into our food supply.

Exxpedition UK 2017 will be sampling the micro plastics floating in the offshore waters of the entire coast of the UK.  It is being funded by each participant.  If you would like to contribute to my fare, enabling me to use my science, art, health and teaching background to understanding the full extent of the problem surrounding the UK, please visit my crowdfunding page www.gofundme.com/plasticseas

Thank you