It is September 2009 and Jan Vozenilek is on Midway Atoll staring at the corpse of a decaying albatross. This is why he is here. Nowhere on this island will he find a more striking, a more perfect image. The remains perform two tasks: announce the prevalence of plastic matter in the Pacific Ocean, and the devastating effects it has on the interactive species and ecosystems of the area.

‘Ah,’ Jan think sadly as he sets down his camera and sits beside the swollen mass. The rot is fresh still, seeping. It has been a long day already, and the sun is near setting. Jan takes a moment to acknowledge this death, this one little death among thousands, before he begins the arduous task of carefully documenting it.

The Albatross

Boasting one of the longest wingspans of all extant birds, the albatross enjoys a noble reputation. It is a glider and plays upon oceanic wind currants effortlessly as it scours the water below for prey. The albatross must, after all, hunt deftly and quickly, saving its energy for the long flight home. Back upon its island shores the albatross loyally feeds its lone chick.

The family rituals of the albatross are a patient task. Taking a full five years to reach maturity, the albatross still has years to wait before its lifecycle of mating begins. The young bird must introduce itself to a colony, learn the rituals and ‘language’ of the colony before it can perform the basic steps of the mating dance. Eager as a teenage boy, the albatross’s desire is tempered by its inexperience. Only once it has taken in the lessons of its elders will it catch the eye of a mate.

The albatross pair will dance as a sophisticated duet, elaborately mimicking and perfecting each other’s movements. Only the most well suited couples will in turn mate, the others continue their search for a companion. Once the birds couple, they mate for life, forever recognizing their own movements in their partner’s dance.

The pair will lay one egg a year and spend a second ushering the hatchling to its fledgling state. It proves an arduous task, protecting, teaching and feeding the chick until it can fledge.

In the old poem Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the albatross is considered a good omen, bringing good weather and fortune to the Mariner and his sailors. When, in an act of great folly, the Mariner kills the albatross, the crew’s good fortune comes to a tragic end. The confused and angered crew forces the Mariner to wear the dead albatross around his neck, a remembrance of his mistake.

“Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the albatross

About my neck was hung”

Not since then has the albatross been so significant, such a harbinger. At least until now.

The Widening Gyre

As Jan Vozenilek studies the carcass of the dead albatross before him, he notices it is young. “A fledgling,” he thinks to himself. He shifts his camera angle to get a better shot of the beak and eyes.

On Midway Atoll the dead albatross is almost a more common sighting than a live one.  The epidemic is caused by an infamous trash gyre, a mass accumulation of plastic in the Pacific know as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or GPGP. The span of plastic particles adrift is rumoured to be twice the size of Texas. In certain areas water samples have yielded more plastic on a parts-per-million basis than plankton. A remarkable feat, or rather, tragedy for this area.

“Plastic, plastic everywhere” the poem would now read. The water is teeming with shards of everyday plastics from bottles, food packaging, lighters and toys.

When I spoke to Jan in mid June, he was preparing for his second visit to Midway.

“The last time we were on Midway there wasn’t a single live albatross left….This time we are including the baby albatrosses. It will be profound to actually seem them and meet these little guys.”

The presence of plastic has completely disrupted the albatross life cycle on Midway. The adult birds are attracted to the brightly coloured plastics circulating in the garbage gyre, which is caused by constantly moving ocean currents. Returning to their nests with a mouthful of indigestible plastic pieces, the adults feed their chicks, mouth to mouth they transfer the catch.

The chicks eventually die of starvation, their bellies bulging with a collection of unchanged, unmoved plastic particles. The pieces are brightly coloured and in the final stages of decay they shine like a ball of confetti, a miniature firework set neatly within the bird’s frame.

“They tell us that 60% will die because they won’t even make it off the island, the starve because their bellies are full of plastics. If they do make it off the island they can’t take off from the water and they just drown. This is what we will witness when we get there. A good amount of them are able to fly away, but most of them won’t.”

Jan adds, “At this time of year there is actually a sign in one of the bays where the young birds land that says ‘no swimming.’ That is because there are so many sharks there, waiting for these birds to drown.”

The birds are weak and become flightless, weighed down by malnourishment and heavy plastic. This has evoked new ecological patterns, with sharks accustomed to this easy prey the plastic moves up the food chain.

“Our goal is to go back again two or three times to film the babies in their different stages of development so we have the full story of what happens at that critical moment when parents come back and regurgitate toothbrushes and cigarette lighters. It is important to capture this.”

There has been some controversy and skepticism surrounding the authenticity of the footage that was captured during the last Midway trip.

“People were saying there is no way that all that plastic could fit into the body cavity of a bird. That broke my heart. We have a strict code of ethics: we are not allowed to add or modify the shot in anyway.”

So now the Journey to Midway team, which includes photographer Chris Jordan and his writer wife Victoria Sloan Jordan, returns with renewed resolve, determined to expose the process in its entirety.

Jan understands the disbelief, however. He experienced it himself.

“I have always been, I don’t know if you would call me an environmentalist, but I’ve always been passionate about this world and protecting nature. If you asked me where my favourite place is, it is working alone in the forest, that’s the happy place.

So when I had the opportunity to meet Chris Jordan at a conference about a year ago and we spoke about this issue that’s where the connections was made. I was invited to join the expedition. I didn’t know what to expect so I did some research. But never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that it was going to be as bad as it was, leaving this life impression on me.”

I asked Jan if that is something that is easy to communicate and does he have an audience for it.

“Actually, yes,” Jan says pleased. “We worked hard right away during the last trip, putting up the footage we collected on YouTube and the audience grew really quickly.”

Halfway into their time on Midway Jan got an unexpected email: “I got an email from a group in the Okanagan, asking if I could share my experience with the people there when I returned. To be honest my heart sank. I chose a profession where I didn’t have to speak publically. I liked being behind the camera.”

But Jan will tell you, he hasn’t turned down an invitation to speak yet.

“I had this profound experience when I was up early one morning. I was filming this dead albatross and his feathers were blowing in the wind and then this squall came up and it began to pour. The rain was flooding in sideways and I had to scramble to collect my equipment. It was then that I thought to myself, ‘how can I be so selfish? People need to know this. All of these products came from us.’ It was this weird profound moment.”

When Jan returned from his trip he began sharing his experience, despite his fears. Putting together presentations on the topic, Jan mapped out the route of plastics, showing the great links between local waterways and ocean shores.

“I linked this trash to our own backyards.”

In total Jan has spoken to over 1500 people. “I’ve tied in solutions as well, which I think is important. It is important not to overwhelm people. I try to find a balance and not to leave people in that shocked space. I know what it is like to walk up to an environmental table at an event, my brain just shuts down. I feel so overwhelmed by all of these problems. So I’ve been trying to target a clear message: single-use disposable plastics.

I want people to know they can make that one change and see the connection. They can go on with their lives and I haven’t overwhelmed them.”

Jan speaks mostly to elementary and high schools, which suits him well.

“My other passion is education and kids and this is really a kid project, it’s a natural fit. The more research I do the more I realize they are our target audience. They have to be educated at an early age. They have to make better choices than I made, than our parents made.”

Speaking to a middle age school audience can be daunting though, and Jan was feeling intimidated before one presentation. “I was terrified because I heard the middle school age crowd can be really tough.”

But Jan makes his presentations accessible, giving practical examples from his own life. “At this school I shared a little story of what I do in my own life to make a difference.”

Jan recounted an experience he had recently had in a mall food court. “The Chinese restaurant caught my eye so I went over and my very first question was, ‘do you have anything that you could put this food on that is better for the environment?’ The woman said they provided paper plates instead of Styrofoam. But when the woman began dishing out the food, she put it on a Styrofoam plate and when I asked, she admitted that she actually didn’t have any paper plates.

I said ‘no thanks’ and told her about the effects of Styrofoam on the environment. I told her I would come back when they had something better for the environment.”

To Jan’s surprise, the entire audience burst into triumphant applause. Not bad for such a tough crowd.

“We gave them this power, this hope and choice. I don’t know it its just the rebellious nature of the group, but in the end, you are giving them the power to make choices as individuals.”

But, Jan admits, “this is all new to me.”

Before leaving the school, Jan saw two students staring dumbfounded at the vending machine. “I’m trying to buy something not wrapped in plastic,” one of the students said looking towards Jan. Eventually the student decided to not purchase anything from the machine. This episode happened, luckily, in front of the group of teachers Jan was speaking with.

“It was really worth my time being there that day. That’s how the torch gets passed.”

And the passing of the torch will continue as Jan and his teammates prepare for their return journey.

“In terms of the next part of this project, going back, we have a sort of pipeline of people who care about this. Between Facebook followers and the Plastic Pollution Coalition, its been exciting to see this grow and go back through that media”

“That’s actually one of the key factors that inspired Chris Jordan to go there in the first place. There wasn’t anything available on the Internet to see what was happening out there. People spoke about this floating island of trash and they thought you could dock your boat there and walk on it.”

But the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is more insidious than this. It is a consistent circulating patch of plastic shards, debris and particles that are dispersed throughout the water, shallow in some places, deep in others. The larger pieces may be easy to pick out, but as the plastic breaks down it begins to mix with the water on a particulate scale. Because of this, it is beyond any known clean up method.

The plastic to varying degrees becomes food for many species, not just the albatross. Small and large fish species, crabs and other birds all feed on the plastic matter. In this way the plastic floods the entire food chain, right through to the species we commonly eat.

As Manuel Maqueda, a writer and social media expert who joined the team on Midway, puts it in one of his blog posts, “And like the albatrosses on Midway, we carry the garbage patch inside of us.” (www.midwayjourney.com)

Like the Ancient Mariner, we wear our folly literally, a new take on an old curse.

Hope 2.0

“You would think one of the world’s remotest islands would be the cleanest,” Jan muses during our phone conversation.

“Probably the most moving thing on Midway is the stark contrast between the death and the life. Amongst all of these thousands of decaying albatrosses all over the island are other bird species that are flying up in the air, in the trees. The place is still teeming with life. While we were on our bikes the white terns would hover overhead and make chirping sounds, almost like angles. It was almost spiritual, this hovering overhead, giving us strength.”

The team plans to make a documentary about their experiences on Midway Island.

“It was amazing to see this, alongside this species of bird that is basically going extinct. We want to have a scene in the movie about this experience – what does hope 2.0 look like? Where are we going from here, when, in just a short sixty years since plastic has been around, look what we’ve done?”

I asked Jan is he was feeling apprehensive about returning to Midway.

“That’s a good word for it. Yeah, I am excited to return again, to see it again. But I am afraid of what I am going to see. We’ve been talking about this with Chris in the last few weeks, the psychological impact Midway has. I know what it did to me last time.

I look at the world with a whole new set of eyes. I was the one who liked to go to Starbucks for a frappuccino, with a plastic cup, lid and straw. Now I see what happens.”

Jan’s awareness, and his outspokenness about this issue, is bringing people out of the woodwork. He is experiencing firsthand the growth of this movement, a movement to ban plastics from shopping centres, municipalities and regions. It is a movement to personally avoid single-use disposable plastics and to eventually move to non-plastic and reusable alternatives.

The Journey to Midway team is preparing to travel back to Midway on July 1^st, 2010. They will be continually updating their blog with photos and video footage.

But the torch doesn’t stop there. This is a movement that is largely dependent on viral exposure and they need all of the media attention they can get. So while you are checking in on the team’s progress, be sure to share the news. After that, look into your local policies on plastic use, use reusable bags and cups, buy bulk and reuse your plastic bags.

If we have created such a mess in the last sixty years through carelessness, imagine what the next sixty years could produce if we were thoughtful, diligent and careful.

Resources:

www.MidwayJourney.com

www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org

Midway Journey on Facebook

Twitter: @midwayjourney

Jan’s Wordpress Blog