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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.
Tue, Mar 01 2011 at 5:24 PM
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Photo: poolie/Flickr
In 1992, a shipping crate containing 28,000 plastic bath toys was lost at sea when it fell overboard on its way from Hong Kong to the United States. No one at the time could have guessed that those same bath toys would still be floating the world's oceans nearly 20 years later.
Today that flotilla of plastic ducks are being hailed for revolutionizing our understanding of ocean currents, as well as for teaching us a thing or two about plastic pollution in the process, according to the Independent.
Since that fabled day in 1992 when they were unceremoniously abandoned at sea, the yellow ducks have bobbed halfway around the world. Some have washed up on the shores of Hawaii, Alaska, South America, Australia and the Pacific Northwest; others have been found frozen in Arctic ice. Still others have somehow made their way as far as Scotland and Newfoundland, in the Atlantic.
The charismatic duckies have even been christened with a name, the "Friendly Floatees," by devoted followers who have tracked their progress over the years.
"I have a website that people use to send me pictures of the ducks they find on beaches all over the world," said Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a retired oceanographer and Floatee enthusiast. "I'm able to tell quickly if they are from this batch. I've had one from the UK which I believe is genuine. A photograph of it was sent to me by a woman judge in Scotland."
This map details the extent of where the ducks have traveled so far:
Perhaps the most famous Floatees, though, are the some 2,000 of them that still circulate in the currents of the North Pacific Gyre — a vortex of currents which stretches between Japan, southeast Alaska, Kodiak and the Aleutian Islands that the plight of the duckies helped to identify.
"We always knew that this gyre existed. But until the ducks came along, we didn't know how long it took to complete a circuit," said Ebbesmeyer. "It was like knowing that a planet is in the solar system but not being able to say how long it takes to orbit. Well, now we know exactly how long it takes: about three years."
Today the North Pacific Gyre is also home to what has been called the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, a massive island of floating debris, mostly plastic, that the gyre stirs like a giant pot of trashy soup. (A short documentary about the gyre paints a pretty grim picture.) Though the rubber ducks have helped raise awareness about the gyre, most of what makes up the garbage patch is hardly so cute. Most of it consists of tiny plastic fragments and chemical sludge, but just about anything that floats which people discard can be found there.
Some of the trash got there the same way the rubber duckies did, via lost shipping crates. Though no one knows exactly how many shipping containers are lost at sea every year, oceanographers put the figure at anything from several hundred to 10,000 a year, a startling estimate, though still only a tiny part of a global trash problem.
"I've heard tales of containers getting lost that are full of those big plastic bags that dry cleaners use," said Donovan Hohn, an author of a book called "Moby-Duck," which immortalizes the journey of the 28,000 rubber duckies. "I've also heard of crates full of cigarettes going overboard, which of course end up having their butts ingested by marine animals. In fact, one of the endnotes in my book lists the contents of a dead whale's belly: it was full of trash. Plastic pollution is a real problem."
Today we know that there are as many as 11 major gyres across the world's oceans, and all of them are potential vestibules for the world's trash. And if the Friendly Floatees are an example for anything, it's that plastic trash endures for a very long time and that it's a global issue.
"The ones washing up in Alaska after 19 years are still in pretty good shape," added Ebbesmeyer.
Also on MNN:
- 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
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i didn't knew abt this till i watched TOUCH, the TV series starring by Kieffer Sutherland episode 11.
I think i have found three of your ducks- They were in a canal only about half a mile fromm the sea on the south coast of Englad. They look dirty and have number on the front. 37, 68, 72. There was a 4th smaller but the dog chased and i could not get hold of it. The duck that is not the dog!!
When i can upload a photo i will post it
the truth is nobody really thinks about trash on submarines. on a daily basis subs and naval ships throw trash overboardhundreds of cans are thrown overboard when ships deploy or go out to sea
Walking struck, murdered by automobile within Towson
Richard, this is a huge problem. There are students and faculty at the New York Institute of Technology who are trying to help by inventing SodaBIB, a system that uses discarded plastic bottles to make roofs and shelters for disaster areas. They have a Kickstarter campaign that ends soon, you can help them here http://kck.st/XOMbSS
wow...trash itself is a major problem but you never think about the impact of the products lost at sea that we are shipping from other countries!
This teaches us that injection molded objects shaped like ducks want to migrate like ducks. The rubber and plastic variety of duck seems to be much more sturdy and able to survive in all types of environments. I predict that this new superior duck will be replacing the feathered ones in the near future since the old ones have proven to be flawed and obsolete technology.
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.
Where at in South Jersey? I'm in cape may!
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
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?
If we know where these floating islands of garbage are, maybe we should go vacuum them up? That could be the fine to BP Oil for the spill in the Gulf, and the Exxon for the spill up north. Create pollution, then you clean it up and some extra!
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...
it told me
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.
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