Video: Race For Water Odyssey Presentation

April 5, 2015

The Race for Water Odyssey crew recently arrived in Bermuda, having traveled from the Azores as part of their 300-day expedition that is studying the impact of plastic pollution in the ocean globally.

The expedition is being put on by the Switzerland-based Race for Water Foundation, and started on March 15, 2015 in Bordeaux, France.

According to the crew’s online journal, Bermuda is the “second witness island of the expedition,” and they arrived after seven days of “turbulent navigation” from the Azores.


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“Present in Bermuda until April 5th, the expedition team will analyze the waste littering 6 strictly-selected beaches of the archipelago. In order to obtain comparable data, these analyses will be carried out according to the same scientific protocol as the one deployed in the Azores.”

As part of their efforts in Bermuda, the Race for Water team offered a presentation at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess, highlighting their effort to visit five oceans in only 300 days as they investigate “areas of ocean around the world affected by plastic garbage pollution.”

The crew said they aim to “create the first global assessment of plastic pollution in oceans, by visiting islands located in the heart of trash vortexes.

“These islands, which lie at the center of the gyres, serve as a sort of natural barrier against the movement of this waste, catching the debris and making it accumulate on their coasts. Their beaches are therefore a representative sample of the kinds and quantities of debris found in the surrounding waters.”

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Comments (2)

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  1. Keep Bermuda Beautiful says:

    Thank you, Bernews, for covering this important story. The health of our planet depends on the health of our oceans. There are many people around the world who are focusing on solutions for plastic pollution and we are pleased to count Bermuda amongst them. In 2010, we formed the Bermuda Marine Debris Taskforce to study the problem, quantify the problem, share information with others (both locally and globally) and help develop solutions.

    In Bermuda we are able to benefit from used and discarded plastic which is in our household garbage by burning it at the Tynes Bay Waste-to-Energy Facility and convert it to electricity. This is done at very high temperatures and with regulatory controlled operations that capture the heavy particulates and dioxins into the ash, and it is not emitted out of the stack. Other countries who landfill are not so fortunate and the plastics that end up in the environment can travel from wind and storm to the rivers and to the oceans.

    Please follow the Race for Water Odyssey http://www.raceforwater.com and the Bermuda Marine Debris Taskforce locally at http://www.Facebook.com/bermudataskforce .

  2. sage says:

    How about sewage treatment? We are currently pumping raw sewage into our pristine waters and all we want to do is bring more people in to increase the pollution.