Rozalia Project Intern Blog: Monofilament: use it then RECYCLE it!

Today's post is 4th in our series of blog posts by incoming Rozalia Project interns. This one comes from Kayla Lubold who normally attends Eckerd College as an Environmental Science major. Currently, however, she is at sea with Sea Education Association! Kayla, like the others, was asked to write about marine debris from a personal perspective.

When monofilament fishing line is not disposed properly, it is a great threat to the environment, especially the aquatic species. For one of my environmental studies classes our finial project was on any environmental issue. That was easy to me because I wanted to learn more about how you can lessen your impact on the environment from fishing. I chose this topic because in many places where I go fishing people are not cleaning up their fishing line, never mind recycling it. Some fisherman can be careless about leaving behind their fishing line or some don’t know the risks of what loose fishing line can do to the environment.

Through this project I learned about the effects of monofilament. The fishing line is often clear and appears invisible to the animals.  Animals such as shorebirds, turtles and seals get entangled in the fishing line that was left behind. If entangled, the animal could lose a limb or its life. Animals may confuse monofilament for food, ingest it or use it as nesting material. (Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation)

During my research I learned the different ways fisherman can recycle their monofilament line. In areas that do provide recycling stations, they are located indoors and outdoors. The indoor recycling bins can be found at some tackle shops and other participating shops. The outdoor bins are typically found at marinas, boat ramps, piers and are made from PVC.  Where I go to school in Florida the recycling bins for monofilament line are everywhere, but I know in many other areas they are hard to find or nonexistent.  If you are interested in placing a recycle bin in your local area the Florida Monofilament Recovery & Recycling Program (MRRP) website has great instructions on how to build an indoor or outdoor bin. (Monofilament Recovery & Recycling Program)

Rozalia Project note: The Boat US Foundation (an awesome Rozalia Project partner, and one of our first partners), has an excellent nationwide monofilament recovery and recycling program. In fact, Rozalia Project is working with them to put bins in some of the locations we visit where we find a lot of discarded fishing line just sitting on the docks or wrapped around pilings. For information about the Boat US Foundation's Reel in and Recycle Program see: http://www.boatus.com/foundation/monofilament/

Work Cited

Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation. March 20, 2008. March 26, 2012. Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation to Assist with Monofilament Line Removal.                                                           

http://wildlife-rescue.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=90&Itemid=91 

Monofilament Recovery & Recycling Program. State of Florida, Web. 26 Mar 2012. http://mrrp.myfwc.com/

Kilroy was here

...or I should say, thanks to Kilroy Realty Corporation, Rozalia Project was here (in Boston). This was a big, huge stop of the Trash Tour: full of trash now out of the water, full of kids and adults learning about the problem of marine debris and full of some excellent support that made this week happen.

It all started with a spectacular sail from the Cape Cod canal, along the Mass coast and into Boston. Luckily Will Lippit from Providence Community Boating joined us for the trip and thanks to his presence, we were able to keep the sails up and short tack our way up the last 2 channels into Boston Harbor into 27 knots with just the 4 of us (Smudge and Hickory stayed wedged between the edge of the cockpit and the liferaft so I am not counting them as crew for this trip).

American Promise and Rozalia Project were hosted by Couragous Sailing and their excellent team of instructors and directors. They could not have been more enthusiastic or accommodating and (through no fault of their own) in need of our trash pick up services. The very first evening we were there, Sloane and I walked the docks with the nets and picked up 174 pieces of trash, much of it micro plastic. The next day we rented a car and headed south as I had the honor and pleasure of presenting about Rozalia Project at the Woods Hole Public Library. This little town on the Cape is the home of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Sea Education Association, the Marine Biological Lab and a lot of smart, movers and shakers of the underwater world. One, Jeffrey Brodeur of Woods Hole Sea Grant, arranged the presentation and treated us to a tour of WHOI. We even got to see Alvin (and in a moment of joyous geekiness, we took pictures in the frame of this famed manned submersible) and we met some of WHOI's scientists and underwater technology pioneers. Very cool.

After Woods Hole, everything started heating up literally and figuratively. We were very lucky to have some well needed and excellent help from Susan Shingledecker and Alanna Keating from the Boat US Foundation who joined us on the boat at Courageous (yippee). We ran 2 full-on days with the Courageous Sailing program kids and the Charlestown Navy Yard basin where Courageous operates is a target rich environment. The VideoRay equipped with Blueview sonar and Lyyn image enhancement were working overtime to find piles of beer cans, bottles, a few bilge pumps, some boat parts and a fair amount of big debris. We had over 107 kids and instructors participating on American Promise as netters, tether handlers, sonar operators and copilots. The next day, we kept going with another 80 sailors joining in the trash hunt or coming back for more. Thanks to the Blueview sonar, we were even able to help a dive team locate an old mooring block for future removal (the visibility was so bad, that the diver simply could not find what he was looking for). We did another dock walk in addition to the work underwater and picked up another 593 pieces of trash!

Friday was dedicated to Boston Community Boating and the Charles River. We had visited

CBI last year as part of the pilot program so we knew they had a lot of sailors and another target rich environment and this year did not disappoint. They have a beautiful new dock system and we set up near the Western end. Right from the start we knew this was going to feature our most varied and interesting recoveries yet. In the record 102 degree heat we used the ROV to

pull up: a wind sock, cans, boat parts, a whole outfit worth of trash: shorts, socks, a sneaker

(Nike), baseball cap, belt, glove, 3 pairs of sunglasses (none of value) and a glow necklace. We also scored CBI back a full Mercury mainsail that had been purchased the year before and a 30'+ lifting strap. Our most interesting find of the day however, was a Hood milk bottle that, at our first round of research, appears to be very old. It is stamped 1938 on the bottom and we are still working on ways to confirm its age. We still have some of the micro-plastics to count from the day at CBI but we picked up well over 200 pieces of trash and had around 220 people join us during the day or in the afternoon for the Trash Bash. And we appreciate my parents coming out in the ridiculous heat to check out the operation and even help with the tether and netting some bottles, cans and plastic out of the water!

This was our biggest week yet and we have some important companies and people to thank for making it happen with their financial and in-person support:

Thanks to:Kilroy Realty Corporation

Boat US Foundation

Courageous Sailing

Boston Community Boating

Woods Hole Sea Grant

along with our tech partners (VideoRay, Blueview, Lyyn, Tritech and KCF) this week we...

-picked up 1758+ pieces of trash including an historic bottle, Mercury mainsail, 3 pairs of sunglasses, Nike sneaker and pirate flag
-had 407+ people of all ages participate in the program, help get marine debris out of Boston Harbor and the Charles River and get to connect with their underwater world

If you want to check out more photos from our Courageous stop, photographer Russ Bolt took some great ones. See: http://gallery.me.com/russbolt#100094

We are now back in Vermont for a little bit of rest and then some solid work on the phone and on the computer. We have some projects that need finishing, people that need talking to, reports to make, a video to edit and we realized it will all be easier on land (and the dogs are thrilled). More later in the week as we look back at this first phase of the Trash Tour and plan for the next which will still be all about trash pick up action but this time with more of a research focus.

Thank you to everyone who made Boston week and the whole Trash Tour to date amazing. More stats and reports to come.

Stay cool.

rzm and the Rozalia Project/American Promise crew