On June 5th, 2018, Benoît Lecomte, a French architect established in the United States for more than 25 years, embarked on a slightly crazy challenge by plunging into the Pacific Ocean with the intention of swimming from Choshi in Japan across to San Francisco. His ambition is to cover nearly 9,000 km over a six- to eight-month period, all with a view to calling international public attention to the pollution of the oceans. He will cross the Northern section of the so-called “plastic continent” – an area three times the size of France – a build-up of waste particles, disintegrated by the sun and seawater. In August the project was suspended due to two severe typhoons, but the Frenchman was swimming again by August 19. It is also worth pointing out that a study (‘The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Isn’t What You Think It Is’, Lebreton et al.) published by National Geographic and Nature (4666) showed in March 2018 that nets abandoned or lost by fishermen account for 46% of plastic waste entering the sea (…)
Read the full paper here.
