Browsing: ocean pollution

Cruising Life
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Whale Dies in Philippines with 88 Pounds of Plastic in Stomach

A dead whale in the Philippines had 88 pounds of plastic trash in its body, and a whale expert said in some areas of the whale’s stomach the plastic had been there so long it was “almost like a solid brick.” The body of the whale, 15 feet long and weighing 1,000 pounds, washed ashore near the town of Mabini. It had more than 40 pounds of plastic bags in its stomach (see the picture, above), 16 rice sacks, four banana plantation-style bags, and a variety of other plastic waste. Darrell Blatchley, owner of D’Bone Collector Museum in Davao City,…

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New 230-Foot Eco-Yacht Designed To Pluck 5 Tons of Plastic a Day from the Ocean and Then Power Itself with That Waste

Plans for the new Ocean Saviour, a 230-foot, $52 million eco-yacht that is designed to collect plastic from the ocean and then power itself by recycling that waste into fuel, were just unveiled in Southampton, UK. The boat will have two booms on either side that will funnel floating pollution into a conveyer. The plastic then will be chopped into tiny pieces, milled and processed onboard to power the boat. The high-tech process on Ocean Saviour will destroy ocean waste completely with “minimal atmospheric pollution,” according to its designers. The yacht can scoop up five tons of plastic pollution a day and…

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Ben Lecomte Already Swam Across the Atlantic. Now’s He’s Swimming Across the Pacific. Only 4,795 Miles To Go

When Ben Lecomte, a French-born long-distance swimmer who now lives in Texas, swam across the Atlantic in 1998, he said, “never again.” But that was then. Now Lecomte, 51, is trying to swim across a much larger ocean, the Pacific, and he’s off to a good start. Lecomte started in Tokyo on June 5, aiming for San Francisco, some 5,000 miles away. His swim across the Atlantic took 73 days. The Pacific will take six months. So far, he’s come 205 miles. If he makes it, he will be the first person to swim across the Pacific Ocean. Lecomte says…

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Largest Dead Zone in the World (Where Ocean Does Not Have Enough Oxygen to Support Life) Found in Gulf of Oman

The largest ocean dead zone in the world, larger than the state of Florida, has just been found in the Gulf of Oman, a strait bordered by Iran, Pakistan, Oman and the UAE, measuring about 63,700 square miles. The dead zone is not only the largest but also the thickest in the world, according to researchers from the University of East Anglia, who studied the area for eight months, using underwater Seaglider robots to feed data to satellites. The scientists had last measured the gulf in the 1990s, and now report a “dramatic increase” in the size and severity of…