Algalita Marine Research And Education
Started in 1994 by Captain Charles Moore the organization’s initial mission was to restore the disappearing kelp forests and improve water quality along the California coast. In 1997 all that changed. Captain Moore made a startling discovery at sea. Taking a shortcut from Hawaii to California aboard his 50-foot catamaran he veered away from his usual course and went through the rarely traveled North Pacific Gyre. greatnonprofits.org He recalls that “As I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been a pristine ocean, I was confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic,” the captain wrote in an essay for Natural History. “It seemed unbelievable, but I never found a clear spot. In the week it took to cross the subtropical high, no matter what time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere: bottles, bottle caps, wrappers, fragments.” From that point Algalita has pioneered the scientific study of plastic pollution in ...