A six-member nautical team set sail from the south-western French city of Bourdeaux on Sunday afternoon, kicking off a 300-day expedition to collect information about the level of pollution in ocean waters, dpa reported. The trimaran and her crew will make 20 stopovers over the course of the 40,000-nautical mile journey, collecting sand samples and conducting trash surveys on island beaches that are in the midst of the sea's most polluted areas. "We chose the islands because they are representative of pollution in the gyres, but serve as a barrier to trash," a spokeswoman for the foundation backing the expedition, Race for Water, told dpa. Due to large rotating ocean currents, trash is concentrated by so-called gyres to form floating dumps. While patches of trash floating at the centre of some vortices have become known through photos, many scientists are more concerned about micro-plastics, or unseen pieces debris that have broken down in the water. The crew will collect sand samples that contain the micro-plastics and turn the data over to scientists at the EPFL technical institute in Switzerland. Using the micro-plastics data as well as measurements of the density of trash that has not yet broken down, the foundation hopes to draw up a global assessment of pollution. It will also conduct a survey of how island dwellers handle the influx of trash, and deploy aerial drones over areas of the ocean where garbage is concentrated to draw up a map of debris. Some 80 percent of pollution in the ocean originates from human activities. The extent of the impact of ocean pollution on marine life is not clearly known. According to US-based Nation Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there is also no sound estimate for the size or mass of ocean garbage patches. -- SPA 21:51 LOCAL TIME 18:51 GMT تغريد
