Gibsons Paddle Club promotes the sport of outrigger canoeing, which means our members are on the water several times a week. Paddlers see all kinds of nature, but also floating debris such as Styrofoam, plastic, rope, and other assorted marine items.
Our crew decided to make it a mission to collect what we could and call ourselves “The Ocean Ranger.” When debris is sighted, we stop the canoe and retrieve what we can but we were unsure what to do with the collected debris.
Thanks to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Ocean Legacy Foundation has established an ocean plastic depot to collect and recycle select ocean plastics and marine debris. The depot is located at the Sechelt Landfill and new members are given orientation to the site as well as a safety training by SCRD personnel before using the depot. Recently, Kate and Dave Barratt along with Bob Field visited the landfill for orientation and transported the first collection of Styrofoam from our compound to the Ocean Plastic Depot: oceanplasticdepot.ca.
Periodically, the debris is collected by the Ocean Legacy Foundation, taken to another facility where it is sorted, shredded, washed, then processed into pellets to be used in remanufactured products. What we collect from the Salish Sea will now be recycled into usable products.
Ocean Legacy Foundation is a Canadian based non-profit organization that was founded in 2013 with the goal to end ocean plastic waste. The Ocean Legacy Plastic program is now able to produce recycled marine debris from processed plastic recovered from used marine gear, coastal shorelines, and our ocean for use in the manufacturing of new value-added, durable products. legacyplastic.ca.
We hope to see all our club members making the effort to keep our ocean clean.
