Morton: Jag blev chockad

Reportern bakom dokumentären om ”sopberget” i havet

Reportern Thomas Morton åkte ut i Stilla havet för att med egna ögon studera ”sopberget” i havet.

På torsdagen chattade han medaftonbladet.se:s läsare.

– Jag är uppriktigt orolig över mänsklighetens fortlevande om vi inte fokuserar få att fixa den här soppan, skrev Thomas Morton.

Robert säger: Hey there Thomas :D .. how did u react when you saw all the garbage that came floating all the time? .. Take care! :)

Thomas Morton säger: Hi Robert, the constant floating garbage hundreds of miles out at sea was pretty shocking, but it wasn't nearly as depressing as all the particulate waste we were trawling out of the water every day. Thanks!

Onaroskar säger: Hello Thomas, I'm just wondering, waht is the most radom thing you've found i tha water?

Thomas Morton säger: We found a lot of weird stuff, construction helmets, kids' life preservers, a motorcycle tire - but most random would probably be the 30-foot phone-pole-looking thing we came dangerously close to hitting.

Staffan säger: Hi! Where does all this plastic come from, and is it possible to save our seas the seas from this type of polutions? Thanks for a real wakeup-call to the worl!

Thomas Morton säger: Roughly a fifth of the waste comes from ships crossing the Pacific, but the majority runs off from land into the water and comes from every country with a shore. Hopefully it is possible to save the seas, but it will take a complete overhaul of the way both Western countries, Asia, and especially the developing world manage our waste.

danieliel säger: hello. did you and the team just sail around in the passific and just find that net ?

Thomas Morton säger: Pretty much. The captain plotted our course based on where he'd previously seen a lot of garbage and where the winds and current would be most still, but it was still contingent on luck to find things like that ghost net. Actually we saw two or three nets before the one in the video, but we lost them all trying to turn the ship around.

fredrik säger: Hello Thomas, how did you come up with the ide of going out and search for the garbage in the sea ?

Thomas Morton säger: Hi Fredrik, we'd been reading occasional articles about the trash buildup for a few years but were disappointed that none of them ever included the right type of visuals to hammer the point home. It's a hugely important issue with respect to both the ocean biome and human health, but we felt like it was getting short shrift to more marketable environmental concerns like seal clubbing and whatnot.

mi säger: i wonder wath you think that i as a individual person can do to help?

Thomas Morton säger: One of the tricky things with this situation is that there really isn't much that we as individuals can do to help . It's going to take a complete rethinking of how we as a society take care of our trash to stem the tide of this pollution, and hopefully the development of more readily biodegradable consumer goods. Really the best way to help would be to put your support behind public initiatives for research into alternative energy sources and plastic substitutes of the kind that groups like the Breakthrough Institute promote. That said, reducing the amount of plastic you consume in your everyday - especially in food and drink packaging - may not help the big-picture situation, but it is definitely good for your health.

lalala säger: how did you feel when you were "doing" this project?

Thomas Morton säger: Over the course of the three-week journey I went very quickly from simple curiosity about the exact nature of the garbage patch to a sense of overwhelming dread as its full implications became clear. I long believed that environmentalists' warnings of ecological apocalypse were mostly hyperbole, but after seeing the extent of the damage out there and putting together the affect it has on all life, both at sea and onshore, I genuinely worry about the safe continuation of humanity if we don't focus on fixing this mess.