What can 28,000 rubber duckies lost at sea teach us about our oceans?
A shipping container filled with rubber duckies was lost at sea in 1992, and the bath toys are still washing ashore today.
Photo: poolie/Flickr 
- The Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch: What is it and how did it form?
- Follow The Plastiki, a ship made of recycled bottles that is raising awareness of plastic trash
link:
Comments
I found a rubber duck today on the bay in South Jersey. We just had a hurricane and I was wondering if it could be one of these ducks. It looks new though.
Hi iam sure i found one of these ducks on the south east coast uk while dog walking i took a pic but didnt pick it up if you want a copy of the pic email me
For the commenter who posts the picture is faked because the ducky looks so "fresh"- I have a rubber ducky which is around 50 years old, who hasn't,I admit,been swirling in the sea, but after 50 years, other than the rubber darkening, still looks quite nice, and the paint is still good. I've a 20 or so year old ducky of the type in the picue which has had lots of baths with various children,been chewed on, scrubbed clean after getting nasty,and it shows absolutely no wear at all, The pictured.... More
Since a friend made me very aware of this issue, I have started using plastic lidded containers for my trash, cat litter, etc., and ceased using plastic bags. I bring my own fabric bags to the store for carrying home groceries, and I have been working on minimalizing the use of disposable plastics in general. Unfortunately once you start paying attention, you realize how difficult this is. We need cellulose plastics in use of disposables, not petroleum based.
How about instead of chasing Japanese Scientists for a reality show, the Sea shepherds do some work and net up the gyres all over the world?
Toni, Navassa is 3 miles from Leland. The donations go to PROJECT UPLIFT our program that offers men and women free job training. Hope you will enter a duck!
The pictures looks tricked. How a plastic duck can look that fresh ( the plastique and the paint) after months or years in the sea.???
I don't like that duck.
Maybe the cute duck doesn't like you...
They were meant for a claustrophobic bathtub but instead got the whole dang ocean to play in...wouldn't it be cool to launch a thousand of rubber ducks fitted with radio transmitters so you could track their movements along the various currents
Hey Pip, Do not add a motor, jetpack or radio to a racing rubber duck!
That is crazy! After all this time those rubber duckies are still floating around the ocean.
I was so amused by this story when I heard it in 2004 that I vowed to write a song about it. I did, a few years later. Then it was recorded by a friend of mine. Then I made a music video: http://youtu.be/6HwpXbnJ4zM
Im 19 now and I was born in 1991. It wasnt 20 years ago.
I'm 20 now and I was born in 1991. It was twenty years ago, just earlier in the year, rather than later.
I found one at St. Pete last june thought some kid lost it over board. Now I no the rest of the story
Too bad about the ocean, though. I remember when.
I was born in 1992. Whenever someone mentions that year as "nearly 20 years ago", I die a little inside.
Hey whens your birthday, i was born in 1992 too.
i thought the same thing! haha i'm not that old yet
I'm the same way! i was born the same year
Traversed the Northwest Passage.
i just learned about this last semester in a climate and geography class!
My Oceanography professor in college in 1998 told us about this story, and I tended and still tend to believe that she knew what she was teaching.
-20 years ago when the story first emerged it was a container of Nike sneakers,
then some one discovered that sneakers sank !
- Can you spell Apocryphal ?
Of course. Because only one container of sea-shipped goods has ever been lost when it went overboard, all these stories must be made up. Couldn't you have at least bothered with a basic Google search before making this sweeping declaration based on your magnificent deductive skills?
Go read this: http://articles.cnn.com/2003-05-28/tech/coolsc.oceansecrets_1_curtis-ebb...
And the Wikipedia article: .... More
- The author put it out there, and did not list his sources, "quote your source " are not fighting words in my neighborhood, the rest of my statement merely gave a valid reason to question this and mother nature news agreed with me.
-Was it Apocryphal you objected to, again same reasoning on my part, and I
wasn't trying to slip a bur under anyones blanket
Why can I not find ONE single picture of this supposed mass ANYWHERE? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I believe the story of the ducks, but the supposed mass collection in the gyre has yet to be proven. PLEASE show me ONE picture...just one and I might believe it.
All of those photos are trash along the shore. While disgusting, this is not the miles of trash that are supposedly floating around way offshore.
If you actually read articles on the Pacific Garbage Patch, it doesn't look like a giant ocean landfill. It mostly consists of plastics that have broken down into tiny pieces and are suspended in the water.
The Wiki article is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
If that's insufficiently reliable for your taste, there's a bevy of sources at the bottom you can look
A way to prevent this would be to simply make the things you use where you use them but of course this would prevent multi-national corporations from scouring the world for slave labor.
Can CNN explain how the ducks crossed over the frozen arctic ice? I know sub’s have but I doubt a rubber ducky. Makes more sense they took the southern route around South America and got caught up in the powerful currents heading north. The thin arrow shows they traveled far south and statistically a few made it around the horn. Even Burt and Ernie know ducks would not cross the Arctic.
Have you never heard of glacial debris? It is the stuff that gets stuck in the ice as it freezes and thaws as it moves along. In the case of glaciers it is dumped out at the end where the glacier starts to melt. In the case of the arctic ice objects get stuck in it when the water starts to freeze and then get carried through the ice as it freezes and thaws and moves around on the Arctic Ocean. Once the ice melts near another ocean current the debris then travel with that current.
Curtis.... More
The passage opens up in the summer now, thanks to global warming.
We can build an 'International Space Station' rocket it out into orbit for unknown billions of rubles, dollars, dutsche marks and Pounds F'ing sterling, but we can't buy a used scrap barge chug it out with volunteer sailors and statesmen alike and load up this "dog awful" manner of disaster that's floating right off our shores?? the worlds supermarket over simplified solution, yes. Impossible NO.
I'll give up a month in the summer if you will. I am a teacher with scuba experience that would be happy to donate a month of my off-time on such a mission. It seems to me there is an opportunity here. Unfortunately, I live on the Great Lakes and I don't think I have the blue water experience to try to lead anything like even a token mission would require. Let me know...
I think what I find most disturbing is how unaffected so many are by this. It is the "I don't really give a crap" flippancy of the general population that has made our world the ecological dumping ground that it is. I cannot believe there are such self-absorbed twits out there who read an article of this sort and are only affected by the use of the approximation of years, chances are that is as far as they bothered to read. If it's not "text-speak" they can't understand it. If you'd like a.... More
The year had me seriously confused!
1992... 20 years... I was born in 1992 and I'm only turning 19 this year.... or am I?
Yes, yes, the seas have currents. Lovely. What is most shocking about this article is that they mention 1992 is [approximately] 20 years ago. A shocking realization that makes me feel old! Whattheheck.
The article is incorrect to say twenty years later it has only been eighteen. Could've been a typo but still that's Two Years that haven't happened yet.
It very clearly says "nearly" as in not exactly. 18/19 is typically close enough to 20 to be considered nearly. I pray to God that this is not the only thought you had when you were reading this.
Why no mention of the Nike sports shoes that went overboard years ago, and washed up all over the place? People posted ads in newspapers (pre-internet) for pair matches -- found size 10 left model XYZ, looking for right. Someone did turn it into a study of the ocean currents, as I recall.
I started watching the documentary, but had to shut if off when the arrogant, too-cool voice of the narrator (and most of his crew) got to me. Statements like, "No one knows about it and no one cares" (said by one of the crew members and by others, in other words) are not only incorrect, but unhelpful. These researchers (and a first mate who is just out for fun) go out on a trip (we are reminded how expensive it is, so we might donate) to see the mess and collect samples. What do they bring.... More
wow, that whales belly?
