Two San Diego men, tired of seeing ocean pollution, will travel around the world to convince humans to stop trashing the planet.
Kyle Corbett and Mike Appio are planning a two-year voyage circumnavigating the earth, the goal is to raise awareness about the devastation of our oceans committed by careless human activity.
Corbett and Appio are seeing huge increases in the amount of trash in the ocean, specifically plastics.
Plastic forks, straws, balloons, and cups are in harbors, open waters and deep seas.
“We’re decimating our own planet by our simple conveniences. We’re killing the ocean," Corbett said. "The plastic is only going to multiply. It’s literally destroying our ecosystem.”
“Plastic never breaks down, it only breaks up,” said Appio. “It breaks into tiny pieces, then fish eat it.”
The plan is to have researchers and scientists on the boat documenting what they find in the ocean. They will collect data on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and whatever other trash they come across.
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“We’re going to show people what we are doing to our ocean,” said Corbett, “This boat can’t go out and clean up the entire ocean, but what we can do is teach millions of people that we don’t need to rely on single-use plastics that are used for less than 15 minutes by the average user and comprise 50 percent of all plastics produced in world.”
Then, the sailors plan on going to remote, under-developed villages and educate people about the what’s happening in the ocean.
According to Corbett, many of villagers depend on the ocean for survival but have no idea how they are harming it. Corbett said a big part of the ocean trash problem is fishing nets and lines.
“Villagers in under-developed nations are actually eating fish not knowing what they’re contaminating it with. We’re going to go into villages and show villagers, we’ll cut a fish belly open and show them what contaminants are inside, and say, 'Guys, this is your own fishing line inside of your own food source. This is the change that needs to happen.'”
Besides education and research, a third aspect of the trip is publicity through social media. Show the world what’s happening in very remote places through Instagram, blogs, Facebooks, and vlogs.
Why are Appio and Corbett so passionate about plastic in the ocean?
They say they don’t want to be part of the generation that permanently trashed the ocean.
The sailing excursion is being privately financed, so Corbett and Appio are raising money. If you’re interested in learning more about their plan or want to help heal the ocean you can visit SeasLyfe.com and ReduceImpact.org
