Good Tonic by Louise Roke
Good Tonic by Louise Roke
Vaughan Wellington: The Plastic Viking
Vaughan Wellington is a true modern viking (his boat is aptly named Viking). An unsung modern day hero who is fighting the plastic that is killing our oceans and everything that depends on it.
Dedicating the last 8 years to tirelessly trying to be heard as well as doing research and education about the plastic problem; he travels the world to spread the word and trains other boaties and students so they can spread the word… but is the world really listening..
As Vaughan says “Wake up, it is 5 to midnight”.
I hope you enjoy my chat with Vaughan and perhaps this will inspire you to jump on board to keep our planet afloat before it is too late...
Right.
Speaker 2:I'm Louis Roke tune in weekly for a dose of your good tonic where people share their personal stories. I believe voicing, not suppressing who you uniquely are is part of our human journey. If you would like to know more, would be a guest visit our website. Good tonic.co dot. NZ. I hope you subscribe to our podcast. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3:It is five to midnight. There is such little time left. I hope you enjoy this episode with Vaughan, Wellington. How did you actually get started on your journey? So let's just say what you actually do now.
Speaker 1:Okay. I've spent the last eight years. Yes, after my wife died, I had a boat built, um, before actually, um, and I took the boat into doing research and um, that was mainly because the shock to me in the mid Terrainian of the pollution everywhere. It's so polluted. It's so expensive. It's so congested. It's not a very nice area to be pleasantly sailing. But however, I was tracking the birds that migrate or rebirth, particularly right for the sheer water. And they come down and they borrow into a nest about a meter long and about half a meter under the ground. And the cliff still something you're talking about, all I know is usually a sandy bottom. No. Okay. And um, they, they borrow in and the nests that they occupy when the, these migratory birds say, say for example, those here in New Zealand, they go all the way up to the Arctic. Yes. And um, the, uh, Alaska and the places like this and, and then they migrate back to New Zealand. And so here they, they nest, uh, under the ground, the capital, the parents go out and catch food for their offspring and they only have one offspring per year. And, um, is it fish? They catch and they try to catch it. Right now these sheer water can go down quite a long way, but if they're on the surface and they're flying along and I see something on the surface like that, so they'll pick it up. I got a long way to eight. When you can go shortly. Absolutely. And therefore they dive down. Uh, they pick this thing up and ingest it and then feed it to their chicks later. Right now the chicks get this food, which is not food, it's plastic covered with plankton. It's been sitting in the water like a bottle top or a plastic bottle top that floats. Or then what's going to happen is that this bird, uh, this chick gets this piece of plastic and it's without any nourishment at all, right? And pretty soon, and it only takes about six weeks for these chicks to get out of their nest. Pretty soon they stagger out and they almost in renal failure cause they've got no nourishment and their stomach is absolutely chock-full surprising to be honest. Well, they come out looking for food and uh, in Lord Howe, uh, we've been picking these birds up, uh, between the 25th of March and about the 10th of April. And first thing we do is why them. And if they are under 630 grams, they're not gonna make it. If they're over that, they're fine. Right? We can, we can then pump their stomach, take a blood sample, take us a sample of their, their feathers. Sometimes you get wide feathers and these birds have been up in Fukushima, right? And Japan been, yeah, in Japan and they've been right. Yeah, that's right. So we send these, these off to North Carolina for analysis and they come back. These birds have been radiated, so it's pretty bad what we're doing to the planet.
Speaker 3:So that's what you actually started you on this trip because did you see, I mean obviously did, I've seen the, um, plastic ocean, which we'll talk about later, but um, and the insights of some birds, which just got, it's absolutely mind blowing. I mean, you can't believe that you actually looking at something real.
Speaker 1:Well, that's true. Um,[inaudible] that's what I'm talking about. And the, the record on Lord Howe, uh, was broken, I think last year. It went from 273 pieces in one chick to 284 pieces of plastic of plastic that are ingested by that bird. And the stomach gets full and it staggers out and collect.
Speaker 3:So anybody listening really needs to actually go and visually see the thumb on the page because it really, until you see it, you can't quite, you can't quite,
Speaker 1:I can't visualize it. That hurts. Right? Yeah. And, and, uh, we only get it because we pick up the dead birds in the morning, pick them up, take them back. Uh, and in the laboratory we open up.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay. So it's actually dead birds that you collecting, right?
Speaker 1:No, no, no. We don't. Yeah, don't touch the line. Say what? I'm the curator, Ian Hatton as on Lord Howe has devised is a method of pumping the chicks stomach really from their plastic. Yeah. So what happens is he fills the stomach water, right. Invert the bird. Sure. It's pretty uncomfortable, but then the plastic comes out some, some of it goes. So when they become adults, have they still got the same problem? Yeah, I still got the same. Really? They're just living on plastic. The whole lots. I mean world. Yes. But Eh, after, uh, after there they got away from being chicks and they're feeding of themselves. Um, they don't really go out and eat the plastic. Oh, okay. Um, the, the sheer water, uh, or many different types of fewer water, but so they dive down under the plastic. They the well, yes. Um, some chicken out. Yeah. Um, eat it. So, but if they are gathering food for their chicks, that's a different ballgame. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So were you really building the boat just for a pleasure thing and then you went out to have this pleasurable experience and then you realized that there was the epidemic happening? Is that,
Speaker 1:well, it's worse than that because what happened was that I built the boat right. At great expense. Yes. And this had to be a boat, which I could take up the canals. Yeah.
Speaker 3:How big are you talking about? Just so people 50 feet boat. Yeah. Is it a sailing boat?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Sailing boat and had a mosque, which was stepped. Right. And then if you have a, a boat that you want to take up the French and German and Dutch canal, yes. You've got to have a specific closing in, in less than three feet of really, I say. Okay. So it's they're not deep. You then have to get a unique boat that has a swing keel or you go out and hire one of these Tupperware boats that they rent on the canals. Now I, my wife and I didn't want to do that. We wanted our own birth so that we'd go all over where you want to right here. Um, and that's why I built this boat with a swing keel then in 50 feet in less than three feet of water as we occupy. So as a result, we're now, uh, have, we've just finished a, a coral survey on Wallace island. Oh, mid last year as well as island part of Australia, isn't it? No, Wallace island was part of the French protectorates in the Pacific, but it's about 600 miles north east of Fiji. We were doing an assessment of coral with six scientists onboard and every day they'd go out and they'd do two, two dives. And we did about 27 dives around the island, both inside and outside. And this gave a great opportunity to assist I the pollution and be the state of the coral. Right. And the coral was 50% gone and all the agreed that it was principally due to the temperature, not pollution. Pollution is horrific on this because they really just throw, yeah, I mean, well they really like on Wallace is interesting because they got 24,000 pigs as well as 10,000 people. Now the 24,000 pigs have effluent that's about 12 to 14,000 times worse than any person. And this all ends up in the ICU in the ocean and eat within their a reef system. And you can barely see really goodness. So bad. Credible. It's really bad. And you know, if they did something about their pigs, yeah. The whole environment would, I think change. Going back to the birds. And when you started, so you came to your attention after bird watching literally that that's what kind of belly. Yeah. Yeah. So what was your next step? So, okay, you spent two years in the Mediterranean and then, although this is such a polluted and congested place, I've got to get the hell out. And so I sailed across to the Caribbean, right. And I spent two years in the Caribbean and then sailed up up the, and that's pretty bad. And the birds are disappearing there. Um, as is the sea life and they're over fishing to hell in a handbag. And so all of these things, it's like what David Attenborough's recently said, we're just destroying the planet and if we don't wake up and we start, you know, addressing these issues, we are going to be in serious trouble. Yeah. I think probably the main pollution that I'm concentrating on is plastic because as soon as plastic is thrown into the ocean, it doesn't matter what the size, what the there i-team I think different types of plastic, um, it doesn't matter what it is, it's like a magnet. It sucks up toxins out of the ocean, into it and onto it. That's incredible. This fact alone is so bad because of the plastic under UV gradually breaks down, right and falls apart and we get smaller and smaller pieces and these aggregate to plankton faster and the fish eat it and then that's toxic plastic eating and we're eating the fish. Where is all the plastic coming from? Well, there are five essential areas around the world that are what you might call the called Gyres, g, Y, res. And these are circular currents. So what this, the effect of these is that it concentrates the plastic not only in those five main areas, but wherever there's a confluence of currents that come together. And so what you're getting is that a high concentration of plastic and now it's not much so that these are displacing the marine growth you are getting. There's well over 200 dead zones around the world from these giants, but particular areas that where there's heavy concentrations of, of what we call plastic soup. And this plastic soup displaces everything. And so 50% of the plastic stays on the surface, 50% sinks, right? And we've got a major issue and it's not being addressed by anybody with advantages because there are people like, uh, the recent Champ Boyan Slat, uh, who started ocean cleanup. Now he raised about initially 26 million, but it's risen to about$35 million. Um, and he's expended this in a huge, almost 600 meter, um, plastic awry on the surface with a skirt that goes down 10 feet. Now this huge plastic collector, you might call it, um, is designed to drift across the north Pacific garbage patch. This is in essence, you'd think, well, that's damn good. We can collect everything. But he in fact, he is doing just that. He will once it once it hasn't worked. But once it does work, the problem is it's collecting everything. It's collecting the plankton eye, it's collecting the fighter plankton. I mean, plankton alone comes up every night. It's rich in color and variety. And the biggest problem we've, we as a species have is the plastic. These microplastic is intertwined with the plankton, with the plankton and the fighter plant. Yes, the fighter plankton gives off enormous amounts of oxygen. And I don't know, uh, but, uh, if you stand back for one hour and I'm on a timescale and you look at what, what's happening in one particular hour, for example, population growth would be increased in that one hour by about 9,000 people may think. Isn't that the climate change in that one hour approximately 1 million extra tons of Theo too. That means that the world is generating over 10 billion tons of CO2 every year. Energy-Wise, we are consuming 3.5 million barrels of oil and that one, our good, great plastic is only just one ingredient, all of it, but it's a very serious one because what's happening is that this plastic, it's toxic. It moves up the food chain. So what you're doing is you're getting like Japanese, for example, kill dolphins. Now Donaldson's are at the end of the food chain, so their toxicity with heavy metals and with toxins is extreme. You wouldn't want to be. Yeah. And what are the Japanese do? They counted up and they said they cut it up and they sell it as wild meat to the school children. Do they, how about that? Yeah.
Speaker 3:To be honest with you, nobody really hears about the dolphins being eaten. Sure.
Speaker 1:Oh, 20,000 a year. They catch and kill. I may heard them by, they have specific vessels that go out. W the no daughters emitters that heard the these dolphins into a particular bay and they proceed to seal a buy off and then proceed to kill. Oh goodness. May over 20,000 a year. Incredible. That's incredible. I mean, you hear about the whales, but I never knew about the dolphins, dolphins. And, and, and worse than that, they're selling the dolphin meat as my own weight and it's toxic. Right.
Speaker 3:But that's sad too because everybody loves dolphins in Wales of course. And so, you know, you don't think about these happy dolphins that everybody smiles there. Well, you know, things so laden with, um, toxicity.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And they make some judgments about where we were first. We can sell these dolphins, so they try to sell it to the various aquariums around the world and then those that, uh, you know, cooperative or they just wipe them out and sell them and get rid of the maintenance and look, this is what they're going to be doing with whales. Yeah, no, okay. Wiles have got a problem anyway because fish stocks are going down globally. There's no question.
Speaker 3:And, and a lot of whales eat huge amounts of plankton. And what you're saying is, is that there's so much plastic in the plankton. Absolutely. So, and it's all being ingested. So what about, um, just diverting slightly, but I mean, do you eat fish? Yeah, but I mean obviously my mom's going to die. Definitely the people listening. We might have a fish cup, but I mean, what do you think about that then porn? I mean, you're eating fish and everybody says, oh, you know, at the Omega three and it's so healthy for you and all this stuff. Well, you know, it's interesting because I was asking
Speaker 1:that question, uh, on a recent, um, lecture tool on Iceland and Greenland
Speaker 4:and wanted me to firstly curb my lecturer and, and say, well, you know, we don't like certain parts of you like, well, what, which parts are, well, you say here that there's a lot of people that are Chinese and that are in the audience. Yeah, sure. Uh, but what are you saying? They are the worst polluters. There's no question about it. I could say, yeah, come on. This is this. They've got to wake up five and a half million of the 8 million tons a year that we conservatively estimate goes into the ocean. Five and half million comes from good. Serious. Yeah. And where's if million out of eight and a half million. Yeah. And, and, and what can we do? You go and talk to China. It's like one hand clapping. Well what good luck. What's the world doing about that? I mean, nothing. Nothing. Oh, oh, we wouldn't want to offend China. They might shop off our trade on these autocratic regimes in China. God, what do they need? That'd be a huge, I'm just terrible. Just the pits. Shocking. And what, where's it coming from? Well, not only do they throw it into the ocean, just like a Philippines does, the Philippines puts 1500 tons every day into its own bay.
Speaker 3:So I mean, all these fingers you're saying this must have taken, I mean, has this all been, all these scientists around the world? Have they gone and actually spent, you know, a year there, a year there or whatever? I mean, the
Speaker 4:thanks. I'll let it go to the authorities and I say how much you throwing in this? Yeah, I'm surprised twos there. Okay. I'm surprised that they're being so open about such shoots. You know, they've, the Philippines has got a huge problem. What do they do with it? W w all the landfills are full. Yeah. And so now what they have to do is invest in technology like's happening in Australia where they recovering this plastic, all types of plastic from the ocean, from a, from everywhere from Weist dumps in the like it's not going to landfill. Right. It's going into an energy recovery system. So is that like a recycling taken into power?[inaudible] yeah. Which is why the hell haven't we done that years ago? And I can't understand it. People don't want to part with the money. I mean I did here recently,
Speaker 3:they actually on one of the t uh, the national radio about, it was an interview with Malaysia or somebody from Malaysia and they were talking about China isn't taking back the rupture, it's going to Malaysia. A lot of that apparently from here. Wow. And they were saying that they've got a huge problem anyway. And they were people saying now that the hip become ill from, you know, the burning of it and things. Yeah,
Speaker 4:absolutely. Right. And, and the burning of it is toxic. It's absolutely talk. It's carcinogenic and toxic. Yes. And so this is what's happening in a lot of the Pacific islands. Just going to say that I saw that in two Tuvalu yeah. It's one and a half meters high and they use it to do the cooking now that, that disturbed me how, and, and people are letting that happen[inaudible] right. But they stand next to it and they're going to be cooking the food. I mean, not only does the food ingesting, well it's a woman and things woman. Yeah. Understand. I was really just still coming down with, yeah, I thought that was very sad because here they are living so basic. Absolutely. And yet they were cooking with plastic and I thought, Gosh, if that's not shocking what the world has done, you know. Um, so, okay. So basically that is now, who did you say was doing that for the pains that doing that? Did you say recycling now? Australia, sorry, Australia we did that. Talks about a hundred million dollars. Yes. You've got to put them in the longterm. It's sensible. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Germany has, in 1991 I think it was adopted a system called the green dot system right now, this everybody, nobody took any examples from it. Nobody learned from it. They are now, but this meant that all of their plastic, which previously to that time was going to landfill and the like, none of it goes to landfill. Right. It's all recycled and chemically recycled into its plastic of origin and is successful. They do not have anything that goes into landfill anymore. That's amazing. That's July, 1991 yeah, exactly. We just do not listen and we do not watch what other countries are doing. And certainly if I, as I have tackled China on a number of occasions, and the Chinese that I've met have said, well, come on, why can't you do something? Well, we can't do it anything. Why not? Um, you can edgetaper Oh yes. If I want to spend a a year in, in jail. Why, why do you think
Speaker 4:that some countries are actually more environmentally aware or want to be working with China? Doesn't give us stuff. No, I know, but why is that? I can't. Oh, because I think it's their turn. Yeah. Right. I mean, you've had 10 for the planet two maybe. Right now we're out of time. Yeah. But what do you think about the young Chinese? Because there's a lot of young Chinese coming out who wake up. Yeah. I'm not holding my breath. Yeah. Who have you actually, when you say you've met with China, what sort of people on, for example, on this cruise ship? Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, okay. Um, at the end of my lecture I was, I was told to exclude what
Speaker 4:right. Right. Other countries. So what did you do? Did you have to exclude them or did it exclude? Yeah. At the moment
Speaker 1:you've got China's the worst. Yes. Philippines or Indonesia. We don't know. It could be one or the other, but it's certainly Indonesia is either one or two. Um, uh, two or three. I mean, and then you've got Vietnam and then you've got Malaysia. Yeah. Hang on, I'm clear. These are the five worst in the world. And where are they? Right on their Asian doorstep. Yes. Come on. Everybody's got to wake up. And what did I do? They carry it across the island, throw it into the sea in the hope that the current will take it off to the Indian Ocean Jaya and thereof of the five gyres. There's one in the North Atlantic, one in the South Atlantic, one in the North Pacific. That's the north Pacific garbage patch, one in the South Pacific and one in the Indian Ocean. They are the five primary gyres. Now at the prison time, I am making any minimum trolls, right? These are about a meter high, um, quarter of a meter wide, like float. We dragged them through the water with a big bag at the back and we pick up plastic after five hours of trolling polled out from the boat. And I make all of these Ellie minium trolls and I make them available to other yachts. Okay. And these yachts, we've got hundreds[inaudible] picking up and sanding valuable resorts. Yes. Uh, back to five giants. Um, and five gyres as an organization in, in California is why we never troll after about four 30 at night because plankton comes up from the deep, right. All different types of plankton. It's like a thick gluggy soup, right? Uh, if I troll at night or in the evening, I get this thick and then you just, you spending the times, it's, it's very, very difficult. So we only troll during the day. Okay. Plankton is low down, phytoplankton as low down. And so, uh, these are issues that nobody seems to be addressing when they say we're going to go and clean up the ocean, like ocean cleanup. Right. They haven't addressed the fighter plankton and the plankton and how important it is to preserve these and to have a system in some way, shape or form that will extract the plastic without damaging the marine environment, without taking the plankton, without taking the plankton, without taking the phytoplankton and all that. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. And technology surely is technology. I'm about to post in the U K A reward of about 10,000 pounds of fresh
Speaker 4:idea for, for some somebody to come up with a solution. Okay. This, there's an incentive for some people listening. Well why not? Yeah. You just think if we were to have, say a probe the side of a ship. Yeah. And that was there and dragged through the water and it was checked on a daily basis. Just picking up the microplastic and doing nothing else[inaudible] the next day. Yeah. I mean it'd be a marvelous. So what about all these, um, plastic bags and things that people say biodegradable and this, that, and the other thing? I mean, just didn't really make any none at all. So it really doesn't make any difference.[inaudible] beach down in front here. Yeah. And stupid wedding people fired off a, a cracker. Um, and it went up in the air and all the glitter. What was it? It was plastic. It all fill on the beach, on the beach. I took issue with the guy who was responsible and he said, what are you talking about? It's all I had to[inaudible] so the guys, yeah, I know. But that's why you say we're only being fed the lay people or anything fade what the media tells them that way or you know, I mean it's little chemicals are getting into. Exactly. Now the other thing was obviously there are a lot of supermarkets that had said no plastic bags and all the rest of it. And um, well not only that, but what about all the plastics that are in the safe Max that everything's packaged them? Oh yeah. Well it should be, it's gotta be stopped. It's gotta be sneaky. When I was growing up, we know piper burning. I remember even when my parents used to go to the supermarket years ago, it was all in these big brown paper bags and it was fantastic. What's wrong with that? Exactly. So you know, there's got to be a change. But again, people are not waking up to how insidious this plastic is. Toxic plastic that gets into the food chain. You think, how many people that you're associated with that do eat seafood? Yes. Now for example, 83% wheat. I know this for faith, 83% of all Scampi in the UK has got plastic in it. 40 to 45% of all fish in the UK. I've got plastic. So when you say got plastic, are you talking about that? It's actually in[inaudible]. Yeah, that's, yeah. Okay. Gosh. And what happens is, what happens. Okay. Clastic sits in the stomach. Well, yes, it sits in the stomach, but the toxins, they move to the fatty tissues and the fatty tissue is what we eat is what we eat along with all the other things in the fish. And that fish, when it's eaten by another fish or consumed, it moves up the food chain. Interesting. If we were to go around eating this, what, what, what, what has happened to the human being from eating the,
Speaker 3:this?
Speaker 1:Well, they do, they know that they don't know that for a fact because you've got a lot of different toxins in the sea that are being ingested by the fish and getting into the food chain.
Speaker 3:And is that just early, um, investigations and research into how it's affecting humans?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah. They know for a fact that these are toxic and um, yeah, we're killing the planet big time and we just don't seem to it. But oh no, there's no global warming. We're only just what is causing this global warming then? Well, it could be a lot of things, but particularly pollution, pollution and CO2. Um, we've got a major problem with it. The, so many flights burning fuel and leaving CO2 up in the atmosphere and there's no sure there are many different ways we can absorb this high proportion of CO2, but as we're wiping out the plankton and the fighter plankton that's going to, just to have the balance of the, the higher temperatures, the, the sea absorbs an enormous amount of heat. And this hint is demonstrating itself on not only on fish, on coral, on all marine rife. Uh, we've got about 85% of the world's fresh water that's in the antibiotics. And, um, for example, if we, if some goon was to let off a thermo nuclear exploded, say the mountain in Greenland where you've got four kilometers of ice, gosh, if that melted, that would lift the sea by seven meters, seven global wide globally. Goodness. And that is just there. And the worst thing about it is that the rising sea level then, um, would attack so many glycine in the Antarctic. And once I are attacked, I'd melt from the bottom up. You've got 70 to 80% of the world's freshwater incarcerated in the Antarctic. When this warms up and is released, the sea levels are going to be horrific. They won't be a, a safe place except at home, right up the top of a mountain.
Speaker 3:So the other thing we touched on the other day, which I said don't tell me now because we'll wait til we talk now was you were about to tell me about jellyfish. Yeah. Now, could you just tell me and the audience about the jellyfish because I, I, you started to tell me and I thought, good grief, this sounds very interesting and something I certainly didn't know so
Speaker 1:well, there's a number of books that have come out. One of them very good recent one called spineless and a lovely title, absolute great title. Um, and basically, um, these creatures go back way back, uh, way before the dinosaur. So they are, they're been around for years and years and millennium. Anyway, point is these creatures can survive on a lot less oxygen than fish and ourselves. And we are seeing it already in the Mediterranean all around caustic up. For example, I did a study and found enormous quantities of jellyfish and the tunes, the jellyfish get in, they displace the fish, they make sure that they're the dominant spaces and they can survive in a lot more polluted water, that lot less oxygen than any other space. And so we're getting more and more jellyfish jelly fish globally, everywhere. Cause he was saying something about they suck up the top things as well or not. No, not, not really. I don't know, decisively. I do. We haven't found them. Toxic absorber said it's interesting that gang around thing and they're not absorbing any toxins. Well it's true. Um, but uh, I think they will, they just basically surviving and what the, maintaining it for a long time. Um, but if you're going to look at, for example, wiles now the wiles is a lot more whales now that a lot of the world has stopped killing them. Um, but I'm less concerned about uh, Japan and Norway and Iceland killing whales than I am for the wiles and their food. I think food for these creatures is going to be less and less. I mean, we've just finished a while survey up in new way for conservation international and these whiles check out their, they leave new way and they do about 8,000 miles ride over to the unlist unless the wild has an offspring. If they have an offspring, they go straight to the Antarctic. But if they don't, then these wilds go about eight and a half thousand miles to the eastern side of the Antarctic for a particular cruel that they like because they arrive and most totally amazed created state and naturally wipe it out with Alacrity. These animals are they significantly under threat. And we thought for example of that the blue whale would be almost extinct by now, but that's not theirs. We've found ones and I've seen them. Um, and we've photographed off the southern part of Srilanka and I'm coming across the Pacific. We had a while came up right next to us who when we were trolling and on, got a very good video of it. And this guy I thought was a blue whale, but in fact because he was well over 20 meters, but in fact he wasn't. He was a fin while, um, and uh, hey checked us out and wandered off and he was on his way to the Antarctic. I just want you to ask you one more question. What about the blues? How many do you reckon there are lift? Oh Gosh. Now that's a big question to be gassed. How long is a piece of string, a photograph that is quite mind blowing up. Just seeing it from his lecture notes and I'm taking him to the veins and it had two young kids, uh, frolicking in a cola frolicking, but they look like they're dead actually. Um, amongst all of this pollution, I mean when you throw 1500 tons a day every day into your own buy, you're going to have a lot of plastic and these kids get in there and look around amongst all the hypodermic needles and what have you. Um, uh, look around for stuff that they can sell really. And that's how they use kids survive. Gosh, they collect the plastic that is salable and cause a lot of this plastic starring is not not recyclable at all. What would be unsalable particular types of plastic? Th there's a very good recycling system, India, but you know, it's, that's just my intensive that these children are being brought up to think this is still us. It slightly normal. Yeah, it is normal. Talk to them. I've been for years. And it's interesting actually because you haven't mentioned in DHEA now that you mentioned India. India is not re India is working. I mean it's got its problems, caste system being the least of them and not the least of them I should say. Um, the, the point is India is doing a lot with its environment. Yes. And working on it, but they have to address the same issues as China has to. Um, they real, if we had a system that allowed us to call the rivers, we would have at least 40 to 50% less pollution going into the ocean if we cleaned up the rivers. Because that's where those guys guys from the, from the little towns and they say yes, there's no recycling. Yeah, we'll fix that. Look, look, I've cleaned it up. Threw it in the river. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It's gone out of sight. Now the mind really needs to have a people who are going to these small towns and setting some sort of incentive
Speaker 3:recycling wise. And is that happening or is that happening?
Speaker 1:No, no. Very few countries. Advert. I've just been, um, working on a program,$5 million us for three years, uh, from conservation, you know, from Nature Conservancy to a young team that was going to come together in a quest to[inaudible] in Australia. And um, these funds were going to basically, um, sponsor a joint venture up into Indonesia where they can do a lot of good work, particularly addressing the rivers. Um, as you might expect in any river system, you get a lot of settlements along the rivers and there is no recycling and there is no solution for collecting pollution from these areas. Uh, but if they did, if they had a system, then they're environmentally that the place would just take off. It wouldn't be so much better. And also if they might investments into places like, um, Jakarta where they put the plastic, recycled it back into high technology for energy.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That, that sounds, that sounds like the good, so natural. Yeah. Yeah. And but surely that must be beneficial for everybody. I mean, are there any, I mean, all I'm thinking just don't Mike Investment, is that because of the Texas or getting from fuels? Is that all?
Speaker 1:Well, it might be one of the issues, but I think principally, um, this technology is really, uh, only in the last five to seven years has
Speaker 3:the recycling technology. Cause the other thing I was going to ask you, when did they sort of say that, you know, I mean obviously looking at these photos of these two children and amongst all this rubbish and plastic, uh, when did this become significant? Because I'm just thinking about all these villages that have been around for years and they've been going to the rivers and they'd been doing the washing and cooking and you know, all the rest of it and they never had plastics. Alright. Yep.
Speaker 1:I've been at this now for eight years. I started 2012 after my wife died. Yes. And Oh, well it's now 2019 early. Um, and of those six years I've been well aware of the Philippines and it still is exactly what it was six years ago. So nothing's changed except they've got more totalitarian regimes, like all the countries seem to have, including USA. Um, they're all following, you know, dictators, the Chinese, well,
Speaker 4:I mean, as far as the world, um, sort of rules I guess, on, on whaling and on, on the environment and all that sort of thing. I mean, is that just, I mean, most people just hear about the United Nations and that's about all we hear. But what does it come under? I mean, if, if the world is saying to one country or two countries, look, we, we need this to be fixed up because it's not just affecting you. It's affecting all of us. What does that body that, that comes under? It doesn't, that's the issue. Driving everybody nuts, including the, you look great. They say, well, this is all in international waters. It's not our responsibility. We are a makeup of all hundred 97. Isn't it a different countries around the world? I'm nobody. It seems crazy, doesn't it? For the North Pacific garbage patch, you know, only, uh, you got to give it to this young boy and Slat guys. He raised the money and he's going ahead. Okay. It's threatening the plankton and the phytoplankton and all marine life with these barrier, but the fact is the barrier didn't work. So you mean it didn't work for the fact that it was picking up everything instead of just picking up everything? Yeah, firstly. Secondly, out of that, he's only expecting from that particular barrier, something like 50 tons right. Per Year. And sorry, I interrupted you before too because what we didn't get to the bottom of was that you were saying that these people volunteer to not only pick up this rubbish, but to also sorted into the categories. You were saying the people who have these Ellie minion ones know that you will make, you don't sort it, I mean the yachts themselves. Yes. Float from the marine growth. I mean when you w you have a lot of three weed and bits and pieces and, and this is the element in one that you've made. That's true. That does the sorting, doesn't it? No, doesn't it just collected into a little caught in at the back and then take it out of the water, tip it out. There's a picture there. No, that just there. That's yes. Okay. Yes. The movement classes, there's a classic. And so what would happen here is they would sort out a, I say into categories of different plastic, right? They wouldn't sort it into just collect all of this and it gets dried within the sun. And then what you do is send it off to America. Now they sell plastic and non plastics. Is that what you're saying? Plastic, you know, it's not known. Plus it's all glass plastics and it's all this, these microplastic that you can say yes and that gets sent off and it is analyzed. So they take the longest student latitude of where the trolls been going so they can know decisively where this plastic has come from and what the state of their ocean is. That's fantastic. Yes. How many of you go on 22 hundreds of people doing this?
Speaker 1:Well, five gyres are doing it and they've certain, I'm still manufacturing them form. Um, they s I think they think I'm nuts. I probably am. I started off in America at$1,500 a throw and then got the price down in Australia, then down in New Zealand and now down in Fiji. I'm, it's now cheap. I'm manufacturing them in Fiji at the moment. I think there's only about 50 or 60 being manufactured up there. But um,
Speaker 3:so these five Jaya people, that company five Joe who, who are using profit not for profit, that's what I was going to ask you. So they are not for profit. So they are basically
Speaker 1:Aaron environmental group that going around the world saying, Hey, this is what the situation is with this ocean and that ocean.
Speaker 3:Yes. So people can actually donate money to them. Is that how they yes. Right, right. So is that five as in the number five
Speaker 1:number five, yeah. And then G, Y r e S. And you can look at my look that up on the website and that's all the way at the time. They do very, very good work. Yeah. And you can go on cruises with them and, and do the plastic recovery coming up in Indonesia pretty soon. Nice. And they're finding out a, a lot of new and interesting activities. We, for example, I'm manufacturing, I think about 30[inaudible] what we call Vacca. These are the traditional island boats and these boats are being manufactured in various countries like New Zealand caught it. It's Vacca backer and Croatia. Okay. Well these are the, the old, traditional and traditional way of Seiling from[inaudible]. And uh, we, we've got at the moment, New Zealand, Samoa, Fiji, um, Hawaii. Um, there's a number of countries that have put their name down and said, we want a troll. I say we're going to put your trolls at the back of our boats and we're going to troll along the traditional areas where a lot of the outpouring of plastic is coming from. And we can do that at a a, there's two types of trolls. There's a fast troll, um, called the Avanti and the Vacca is also an adaptation of the Avanti. Then there's a slow troll called a Manta, and this is the long and often says no, no shortage. I care about an hour. I came very slow speeds. And then the Avanti or oh the Varco, um, trolls, they are at high speed, like five knots, seven knots. Um, and they cover a lot more territory. But these are the two different types of troll that five gyres a lending out to yachts. So if you're keen, if you've got a yard, hey[inaudible] I'd love to hear from you. Um, so, um, I'm just looking at some things that you've got here as well. The highlighted. Would you just mind commenting on those ones? How many birds and as basis was over a million birds and a a hundred thousand marine mammals that die each year? Yeah, sure. Uh, I mean primarily from a plastic. Absolutely. Um, once plastic gets into, for example, um, you get something like a turtle that comes along. They've been eating jellyfish. Now, hey, this plastic bag looks very nice. I just consume. And what happens to the plastic that sits in the stomach? Right. I'm surprised they don't die pretty much straight away from concealing[inaudible] but the, that's what I'm surprised about. Um, they don't, they don't die. Um, they just get less and less nutrients. Herb, I mean, gosh, that's, it's, it's not a good way of life isn't it? But we are going much the same way we wrapped in the plastic here and it's toxic plastic. Yeah. So, you know, there are a lot of issues that, um, with plastic for example, with many plastics, they stay around a long time fishing lines, 600 years. Now, how many fishing lines a lost? Um, uh, I mean, how long will plastic last? You've got fishing lines at 600 years. Plastic bottle. 450 years. They're all going to sit on the bottom, uh, nappies. Yeah, they're well over 450 years and the minium can in the, in the sea, it lasts for 200 years. The Star and Foam Cup is 50 years coming. Come on. These are all issues. That's incredible. Uh, have gotta be addressed at some stage and as soon as plastic enters the ocean, it acts as a magnet. We've said that earlier. Uh, toxic chemicals, pesticides, you know, two 40, two, four, five t all benzoids. I mean it just goes on and on and, okay, let's say what is being discarded? Well, out of, out of 300 million tons probably, um, it's, that's manufactured in plastic every year. I mean 300 million tons. That's more than the combined white of everybody on the planet. Just think about it. I can't even, you can't even, and we are making more than everybody, the combined weight of everybody. We're generating plastic and hideous humans. Actually, for example, a 110 billion coca cola bottles. Okay, that's good. God get over it. I mean, yeah. Uh, only 7% were turned into new bottles. Really thing percent. All the rest of still around. So
Speaker 3:I mean, this one you've got here, the stomach contents of one albatross that we'll put on as is quite mind boggling. It really is mind boggling how many pieces animals can ingest. I mean,
Speaker 1:but you can see from that picture alone, uh, oh, I don't know how many items. No, but it, it, that's a, from a dead Albatross. And particularly there was a very good, um, um, outline of what was happening to the Albatross because they breed very heavily in, in a number of areas, but there's one in particular that's been, um, publicized quite widely, and that's for midway. Um, and midway has a fantastic break up of living hours. The Americans have restricted people going there, but, um, it's a terrific spot to observe, um, Albatross and, um, and what's happening to them. Right. Um, they're nesting now amongst huge amounts of plastic they've got.
Speaker 3:So they've actually taken the plastic on board, literally. Um, now the other thing I was going to say actually, because von loves going to the beach like myself because of course he's a water boy and we're sitting at Fornes place here, um, on why Hickey island, on of his places that he comes to. And we're lucky enough to be sitting here and watching the beautiful ocean. And what do you think one, because Vaughn, you like swimming like I do. And after hearing that, it's not like you ever want to go back into the ocean. So what do you think about swimming too? I mean of us do about eating fish and now I'm asking you about something, we'll be too nervous to do anything. It is quite depressed. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:And, and particularly after a lot of rain, right? Um, uh, the runoff.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we'll just say in general, some, some beaches you get the runoff. So that's coming from the, um, properties and, and the waterways and everything coming down there. So that's full of, well, how, why would they be plastics and stuff in there that, oh, it's not so much the plastic. It's the, it's the ECO line. I say stagnant, stagnant water that has been hanging in that[inaudible].
Speaker 1:No dry eye can be toxic, but yeah, we're just wiping out the planet. It washes down and it gets into the ocean. Yeah. And bear in mind, in my lifetime, I mean, I don't know what happens to waste, Eh, atomic waste now, but I can remember back in the 60s and the 70s that I used to in case this into concrete and they'd sink at something. Right? Okay. So we've got pollution and everybody's been throwing stuff into the ocean for centuries.
Speaker 3:Now listen, just to end a couple of things to end, I just want you to briefly, um, tell us about the plastic ocean and first of all, what it is and secondly, where can people get access to that?
Speaker 1:Okay. If you go onto the web, www, um, plastic, um, ocean, that's the website. It's a foundation. It's a established in Hong Kong. Um, and um, they recently produced a film which is on Netflix.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's on Netflix, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, brilliant. So, and it is a must to say after you really need to listen to this podcast first and then go and say, why do you say that?
Speaker 1:I'm hesitant because not many people want to sit and watch a, uh, a movie for 95 minutes on the state of the world's oceans. Now if they are concerned, Yup, that's the place to go.
Speaker 3:But do you think we should be watching that because otherwise otherwise, how? I mean, we talk about these albatross things, we talk about the children, we talk about that. I mean, until you actually see that, because after saying it, it's, it's until you visually say that it's just, it's not the same. You can't grasp what actually, you know. No, no, you can't.
Speaker 1:That's one of the big problems, but, um, quite apart from, uh, what the state of the ocean is now. And bear in mind when I was growing up, we just never thought about these issues. Um,
Speaker 3:well they weren't around really where they, I mean, how long has this, what, I mean, how long has this plastic thing, this whole plastic problem been a problem?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's been quite a, it's been a problem for, well, most of this century. Right. Um, but uh, um, how long has it been a problem? Well, it's hard to know. Um, I mean, for example, in Tuvalu that you can say there, um, uh, and people still fishing. Um, but
Speaker 3:what can we do fishing? He's fishing in there. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. You would just have to say this photo of the sky fishing and what, I didn't even realize he was fishing until I looked at it properly. I thought he was just sitting there looking at the waist and thinking, oh my God, but he's actually trying to get food out of that waste.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. Because the risk. Um, so after you look at various things and you, uh, see what's going on with the environment, you can say to yourself, well, what can one do? Exactly. And that's what I was going to ask you. What can you do? Okay. You can reuse water bottles, right? All right. I tell you, okay, good. Introduced the deposit scheme for plastic bottles. You know how many people used to have that as kids?[inaudible] packaging companies come down on top of a government's and say this is not, not viable. Well, it is viable. You get, you know, Hobos and dropouts and they'll go and collect the bottles and they'll make some money in a, what's wrong with that? Um, uh, you need to also avoid cosmetics. Look at what you are using with your cosmetics if they contain microbeads. And many do, I mean, some of these microbeads are even incorporated in things like toothpaste. No. Right. Um, so you've got to look at the labels that say if toothpaste had that and would it say it has, it's got to have say it's got, it's, it's um, did they say microbeads side? Cause they often will like go to microbeads but I will very rarely do they say plastic but it is plastic. But you know how they say sometimes something different on the label that I wouldn't know what it means. Or do they actually used the word microbeads for instance on the toothpaste or is it something else but a small, it's not cast in stone. Right. And, and this is one of the problems that um, there's no, not a standard for lighting. It's not problem. We've got to carry reusable bags for shopping. Yes. Um, where possible buy in bulk and reduce your packaging. Just, just try it. Uh, swap disposable coffee cups. Um, look for recycled materials where possible, such as building materials, pavements and walkways. And I will, every time I go to the, to the beach, which, okay, I'm a bit different cause I, I skinny dip. But every time I go to the beach, I look for pieces of plastic on the beach or go on down and pick them up. And uh, if you can do it makes a different on a big scale. I mean we'll see what happens is the nurdles, these are plastic beads. They go through all the recycling selves. So they are getting into the ocean quick, smart right now. Uh, we've found on the trolls that we've done between Oakland and Willington, we've found a large quantities of these nurdles on the beaches. Um, I've seen them before. They actually, it's amazing cause I never
Speaker 4:realized probably till a few years ago actually, that, I mean I thought it looked like plastic and all the rest of it, but I didn't realize that it actually really was a, a huge problem that was everywhere. You know, you get a lot of delinquency. Um, we got any delinquency today. Um, uh, God dollar that they, these companies pursue, they were manufacturing these nurdles in USA and they closed down the manufacturing by virtue of how bad it is for the environment. So what do these companies do? They package up their manufacturing unit, send it to, I don't know, Guatemala, Costa Rica. Right. Import the bloody unethical. Yeah. So you saying I'm totally irresponsible, they just moved the problem on to somewhere else. They haven't addressed the issue right now. And neither has the company. So your profit. Exactly talking. So you saying, I'm talking about these tiny little plastic balls that you see on the page that the noodles and are you, are you saying they knew r d rd? Les O noodles. So are you saying that, cause I thought those were a byproduct of breaking down from other plastics. No, actually manufacturing nos conveniently ignored. Oh, so close to clean them up. Yes, it's gonna cost a lot of money. But what do you do with those tiny little, numerous little thing they do? What? Why do they manufacture dies? Because it's cheap carrier for what they put into safe toothpaste or I say what you're saying. So you mean one company is the pull of a woman comes along and she says, I like this, this skin clear and compare. Every time I get into bed I clean my skin. Yeah, I dunno what the husband's saying, but the fact is I haven't got a woman that sleeps with me. So the issue is, you know, she sits there and she cleans the skin with this thing and, and what, and why is it so effective and so good? It has plastic in it to take the, the, the apple of skin off. So what you're saying, these companies, these nurdle companies, they actually sell these nurdles, these bold plastic to the cosmetic. Yeah, exactly. Companies, right? Because I do know that they did stop doing the scrubs or something over here. Um, but yeah,[inaudible] guys should come down on top of these people and say, listen, you can't import that. That's not a product. We're going to allow it because that goes into our water course and that pollutes our environment and stays in our environment for ever ended. Dies. I really, at the end of the day, there's heaps of things that people need to do on a small scale. You see, the biggest problem we've got, um, not
Speaker 1:only you can see it around all the beaches at the moment in New Zealand, um, you're not getting the birds coming back. Okay? I looked down on the beach and you don't see, and y purely because there's not much food. Now where's the food gone? You say, okay, let's, as I've done, I've been talking with Auckland University and they do a lot of work on bivalves. Now these are clams, right? You know, um, and these clams sit in the stand and they oxygenate and, uh, they take in CO2 and these, these are very, very valuable in spite of the fact that, and suddenly some governments are waking up and banning from people, from digging them. They're taking way too much, way too much Chinese. For example, get into some of the beaches in Australia and they just wiping them out and they're not supposed to be taking that money. What happens? These, these creatures are in the sand and they, the food that they ingest, um, this small particles and these particles, they identify, oh, that looks like food. Um, and it's plankton around plastic.[inaudible] and so what happens[inaudible] or your bivalve is under threat. It's getting the wrong food. And so it goes down in health. And so there's suddenly no, there's no birds. Do you not get an oyster catchers here? We got some yesterdays. There's always some at any tangy. Yeah, but not that many. We get probably one or two, you know, if they're under threat, it's just a huge change to keep on rabbiting on like this. And[inaudible] the other day was that you've been, you feel like your head against the wall now because you can do it, you know, you're talking to the converted so and okay then, then people say, well what does he know? He's not a scientist. And you can get onto the site, your experience on the bum. Basically. Tell her, tell the people that what you know, you have worked with five minutes to midnight, you're in deep trouble. Exactly.[inaudible] you're the till nine. And of course, most of the last seven years, all I've been doing is for, for the kids, I call them, I shouldn't call them kids. Um, for the postgraduates that come to the boat, these post-graduates work for two weeks, four weeks, whatever, to own a marine environment of their choice. And I've been paying for all Afghanistan. So this is the thing. So you've been funding so much itself.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so, yeah. Yeah. And you've asked, you've asked people, but they haven't come to the party, haven't you asked? Yeah. Nobody. Nobody see you fighting. Oh God. It's fun. It's sad. I know. But on a cheery note, because I like to have a happy story of course. And this isn't a happy story and this, everyone gets off the bottoms and does something about it, you know? So I do hope that people that what was actually your role with the plastic ocean too? Oh, I was just funding. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Oh, just fundings is born. So I do see, um, the plastic ocean, if you wanna feel absolutely, um, no doubt into brace, but you do need to see it. That's the reality. Because all these things that we've talked about today and will come to light, but let's just literally do a high note at the end here. And the high note is, is that ones, I'm experimenting at the moment with, um, flying, uh, making, um, an electric airplane. So let's finish on a high note, um, excuse the pun, but I see his bulky voyage of the southern Sun by Michael Smith. But tell us a little bit about[inaudible]
Speaker 1:applying. It was an amphibian and ultimately after we get this, uh, this, um, electric plane up and running and, and sold and what have you, uh, on a continuing, it's a kid plane. Um, but the plane does, it gives you two hours flying time and it does about 270 kilometers per hour, which is pretty good, pretty fast for two seater. Um, most planes are, you know, a hundred hundred. And
Speaker 3:are they on a two seat or are they,
Speaker 1:um, and so, um, you got to know what you're doing. But after we get that done, I'm very keen to explore the manufacturer of an amphibian because this guy, uh, the book is called voyage of the southern Sun and Michael Smith went round the world in this really, um, he was very lucky in my opinion, to get around the world in this tiny little craft credible. Um, and it had no autopilot and I think he did.
Speaker 3:So he was by himself the whole time too. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And with the additional, um, uh, it was a two seater aircraft, but he could fill the second seat up with fuel and this gave him quite an extended range of, of um,
Speaker 3:well you'd want to have that. That's your number one, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's a very good read. Um, so worthwhile. And somebody who had a go.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so that's your next venture. So from, from the ocean to the sky. Yeah. You were just laughing actually. Cause it's like the ocean and then the sky. So it's, it's quite amazing actually. And Vaughn, thank you so
Speaker 4:much from everybody. I mean, this work you're doing is crucial and vital and well, it's life. But I mean, we need more people doing something. And that's, that's really, um, fantastic hearing about these young guys. And so the young ones you were talking about are part of this guy, uh, um, five guys. Yeah. At Five gyres dies. I keep saying go to j uh, you know, if you also get the, the opportunity, um, uh, to go on up to no, no, no. If that so much. Another book too worth reading yes. Is a plan for the planet. Ah, okay. Yeah, that sounds like one that's worthwhile. And reading authored by, um, a guy called I think a, um, um, uh, Crowden I say, I'm not sure. Okay. Well we can look that up anyway. But, um, uh, it, he addresses a number of issues, population climate change, energy, water, food, global resources, conflict and peace, universal education, global health, extreme poverty, um,[inaudible] issues that have come to be addressed, addressed at some time. It's quite amazing. David Attenborough has got the right approach. Ah, incredible. He says we've got to look after the environment cause if we don't, we don't have anything. Exactly. Thanks for one. Thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm Louise Roque. Tune in weekly for a dose of your good tonic by subscribing to our podcast. For more information, visit good tonic docker dot INSEAD. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4:[inaudible].