Wakefield, 8 June 2010 -- Today is World Oceans Day. Why not celebrate by not disposing of any plastic today? Just thinking about plastic in this way will make you realize how much it likely plays an integral part of your life. In honour of World Ocean's Day we would like to highlight the PLASTIKI, a Kontiki-like seacraft made of over 12,000 plastic bottles, which is currently sailing across the Pacific Ocean to raise awareness about marine pollution - the majority of which is plastic (we won't even get into oil in this post). According to the voyage tracker, the Plastiki is currently passing the island of Tuvalu. Here are some recent ocean pollution stats from the Plastiki FAQ page:

- It is estimated that almost all of the marine pollution in the world is comprised of plastic materials. The average proportion varies between 60% and 80% of total marine pollution.
- In many regions in the northern and southern ocean Gyres, plastic materials constitute as much as 90 to 95% of the total amount of marine debris.
- Scientists estimate that every year at least 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die when they entangle themselves in plastic pollution or ingest it.

The Expedition Leader is David de Rothschild, a self-described flexible, cheerful, observant, persistent, impulsive, stubborn, distractible Brit who lives under a mushroom and can't live without ginger. Here is an excerpt from his blogpost today for World Oceans Day: 

"Put simply, in essence, whichever way you want to slice it, we are all part ocean. In basic terms:
No Oceans = No You and Me!
No Oceans = no place to hide the 41% of carbon that is so conveniently and fortunately absorbed by our oceans.
No Oceans = no protein supply to one fifth of the world population.
No Oceans = no home for the estimated 50-80% of all life on earth that lives under the surface of our oceans."

Image credit: Plastiki