11

LENS

Beachcomber Martin Gray discovered fish tags originating

from Newfoundland near his home in Scotland. Based on his

findings, scientists believe that currents are carrying plastic

waste from Canada across the Atlantic. CLEAR’s Fish Tag

Citizen Science project aims to create a database of where

these tags have been found, and where they came from.

ATLANTIC CURRENTS

According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Association, nearly 100 000 marine mammals have litter-

related deaths each year, and an estimated 80 per cent

of marine litter gradually makes its way to the ocean

from land-based sources via storm drains, sewers, and

other routes.

LITTER BUGS

#BABYLEGS AT SEA
In March 2015, BabyLegs was first used in a
raw sewage outflow from a rural community in
Newfoundland, Canada. “We caught microplastic
fibres from kitchen scrubbers and fibreglass strands
from cigarette filters,” explains Dr Liboiron. “In
Newfoundland, where I live and work, there is almost
no information on the state of marine plastics, even
though the province’s cultures and livelihoods are
focused on the ocean.”
Dr Liboiron stresses that the data gathered by
BabyLegs is qualitative rather than quantitative,
meaning that you can identify types of plastics, as well
as a general ratio of plastic types in your sample, but
you cannot estimate the total amount of plastics in any
given area. This is because as the flow of water picks
up speed, the holes in the tights expand, enabling
some of the smallest microplastics already collected
to escape.
This type of research in Northern Canada is
very tough. Most beach survey protocols – where
volunteers and scientists count plastics that wash up
on beaches – assume warm, sandy beaches. Currently,
there are no established protocols on how to gather
and study ocean plastics in an often frozen and rocky
setting, like Newfoundland. “Plastics less than 5 mm
in size, the most plentiful of marine plastics, disappear
between rocks, making it seem as though our main
type of plastic pollution is large fishing gear,” says
Dr Liboiron.

To overcome this problem, a group of Dr Liboiron’s

students, including Cian Kavanagh, Colin Grenning,

and Nicolas Brouard-Ayres, began designing a “plastic

eating device for rocky ocean coasts”, to catch

microplastics that would otherwise disappear between

rocks before a sample could be taken. Should an

unsuspecting beachcomber stumble across the device,

P.E.D.R.O.C. (as it’s affectionately known) includes a

flag that describes what the technology is being used

for and how passers-by can make their own. Although

still in development, the P.E.D.R.O.C. 2.0 prototype

was successful in detecting marine microplastics

and surviving a short period of deployment on Topsail

Beach, Newfoundland, an area of extreme kinetic

wave energy.

ICE CREAM

Another notable project from CLEAR is the ‘Ice Cream

Scoop’, an educational tool to help children learn

about the marine environment by allowing them to

see the presence of plastics in the ocean first hand.

Additionally, there is the ‘Plastic Entanglement Trap’,

a static ocean plastic monitoring device, which can be

anchored in the water near a shoreline, where plastics

are commonly found.

If you want to start gathering your data or

contribute to one of these projects, there are many

ways you can get started. A list of open-source tools

and protocols to guide you through creating your

studies on marine plastic pollution is available from the

Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research

website at: hsmag.cc/eoqUPe.

Below

Plastic fishing waste

such as this is a

common cause of

ocean pollution

Above

A fully assembled

BabyLegs

plastic pollution

monitoring device

Above

Dr Max Liboiron collecting microplastics from a raw sewage

outflow from a rural community in Newfoundland, Canada