The 5Gyres Institute is on a mission to educate the world about the downside of its reliance on single-use plastic. The institute documents the prevalence of marine plastic pollution in oceans around the globe by traveling to the large oceanic systems called gyres, which tend to collect floating plastic. In June, Carolyn Rosevelt, a 2011 graduate of CSUMB’s master’s degree program in applied marine and watershed science, joined a team from the 5Gyres Institute on a sailing expedition to document changes in the density of plastic pollution between the sub-tropical gyre and sub-polar gyre in the North Atlantic Ocean. A few months before the voyage, staff members at 5Gyres had inquired about Rosevelt’s graduate work and the methodologies she used to investigate beach litter in the Monterey Bay region. They encouraged her to apply to join their expedition from Bermuda to Iceland. Bermuda is located in the middle of a sub-tropical gyre. Rosevelt was shocked to see the large quantity of plastic fragments as they pulled up to the beach survey sites on mopeds. Organizations such as the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences and volunteer stewards with Keep Bermuda Beautiful were happy to work with the 5Gyres team to conduct surveys, even lending them a small boat. After wrapping up the beach surveys, the team departed by ship from St. George, Bermuda. The crew was made up of 14 volunteers with various backgrounds in environmental conservation, all eager to meet the challenge of reducing plastic pollution.

Using three separate trawls – a surface manta trawl made of a 4-foot rectangular metal mouth piece and 15-foot net; a surface high-speed trawl which was a smaller version of the manta; and a multi-level trawl which sampled multiple depths below the sea surface – the team found numerous pieces of plastic just a few miles offshore.

In all, the research expedition took 20 days and a total of 37 trawls were deployed from Bermuda to the harbor in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Rosevelt achieved her goal of seeing the extent of ocean plastic pollution firsthand and noted that every single trawl sample yielded plastic particles or pieces.

She also realized that the ocean is “vast beyond description, scary, thrilling, sacred and deserves to be respected and protected.”

Find out more about 5Gyres' work.

Learn about CSUMB’s master’s degree in applied marine and watershed science

*Reprinted from the newsletter of CSU Monterey Bay’s Watershed Institute. Used by permission. Top photo: Elizabeth Rosevelt Bottom photo: Rosevelt and other volunteers headed to Iceland on the sailing vessel Sea Dragon*