'Message in a bottle' trackers to be launched into sea in Cornwall to monitor plastic pollution
Seven will be floated on World Ocean Day - one for every G7 country ahead of the summit at Carbis Bay
Last updated 8th Jun 2021
'Message in a bottle' trackers have been launched into the sea off Cornwall on World Ocean Day, to monitor plastic pollution.
They are designed to mimic a single-use plastic drinks bottle, to understand how plastic pollution behaves in the ocean.
The #OneLess project says the first-of-its kind study that will show how the devices respond to currents and winds as real bottles do.
Seven have been floated around the upcoming G7 Summit's Cornish venue - one for each G7 country.
The bottles could potentially travel hundreds of miles over the course of the project, passing over deep ocean trenches, across major migratory routes for marine mammals and birds and out into the High Seas.
Each device will gather vital data to help scientists understand how plastic moves across the ocean and the potential risk it poses to marine wildlife along the way.
The data will also be fed into ocean observing systems and used to ground truth ocean current observations and models.
Professor Heather Koldewey of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and University of Exeter is the lead scientist on the project.
She said "The small stretch of sea around Cornwall connects to a vast ocean without boundaries.
"By combining novel technology and ocean observing systems, we will obtain new insights into how marine litter behaves.
"The ocean connects us all, G7 leaders need to listen to science, listen to the ocean, and to act. Treaties on global plastic and High Seas protection would be very good places to start".
Professor Heather Koldewey
The launch of the tracking experiment is deliberately timed to coincide with the G7 Summit as scientists from every G7 nation have called on the leaders to pay urgent attention to the connection between the ocean and climate breakdown.
Setting out seven key areas for action across policy and science, the authors highlight the importance of increased ocean monitoring and scientific investigation.
Director of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean and the OneOcean campaign, Mirella von Lindenfels, said:"We cannot solve the climate crisis if we do not protect the ocean. G7 Leaders need to listen to the ocean and take immediate action to significantly increase protection for it and awareness about its role in making life on our planet possible".
Mirella von Lindenfells, OneOcean Campaign
The scientist statement to the G7 included calls for:
- Increasing scientific monitoring and research to understand the role of pollution in the ocean and its impact on ocean resilience to warming.
- Fully or highly protecting at least 30% of the ocean from harmful and polluting activities by creating protected areas by 2030 with the remaining 70% of the ocean sustainably managed.
- Championing the negotiation of a strong High Seas Treaty to protect half the planet's ocean
- Halting the destructive extraction of ocean resources: including immediate and real action to stop overfishing, a freeze on deep sea mining, and stopping off-shore oil and gas exploration.
The tracking devices will be deployed in transects from zero, five and ten nautical miles offshore, and from three locations in Cornwall, each selected to pick up different current regimes that control whether plastic firstly escapes the coastal environment and, further out to sea, where it is eventually transported to.
Dr Phil Hosegood, Associate Professor in Physical Oceanography at the University of Plymouth, said: “Plastic waste drifts around the ocean within currents that are enormously challenging to predict because of the range of scales over which they are generated. At small scales, tidal currents flowing past a coastal headland may create eddies (whirlpools) that trap plastic and stop it escaping to the open ocean where, at the large scale, huge current systems like the Gulf Stream move water over hundreds of kilometres.
"These sensors will therefore provide important, and extremely accurate, insights into how currents at different scales interact, particularly in coastal regions where plastic enters the marine environment, and ultimately control where plastic waste ends up".
Dr Phil Hosegood, University of Plymouth
The devices provide location data via satellite five to six times in each 24 hour period and are designed to last for two years.
A map showing their locations will go live on the #OneLess and OneOcean websites on World Ocean Day: Read more.
They could be being transported into the Celtic Sea and Bristol Channel, or even further out into the Atlantic and north to Scotland, potentially in time for the UNFCCC CoP in November.
Today, World Ocean Day on June 8th 2021, University of Exeter researchers published a new report on "ocean health" in South West England.
The report - the first ever use of the Ocean Health Index (OHI) in the United Kingdom - analyses data on various ocean-related "goals" and gives the South West a score 65 out of 100 for ocean health.